The Big Business of Smuggling Cocaine To Europe: Big Take Podcast

Tons of cheap cocaine is hitching a ride on the global supply chain for fruit

(Bloomberg) — Listen to The Big Take podcast on iHeart, Apple Podcasts and Terminal.

In December, the Big Take podcast told the wild story of drug smugglers who hid 20 tons of cocaine aboard huge container ships bound for Europe from South America — and explained what the record breaking bust meant for the global shipping and the drug trade. Today, we pickup the next chapter of the saga and try to answer: what happens to all that cocaine once it reaches port?Bloomberg investigative reporters Lauren Etter and Vernon Silver join this episode to talk about how a sophisticated network of drug cartels and traffickers recruit young people to sneak the cocaine off the ships and coerce dockworkers to look the other way — and how law enforcement is trying to stop cheap cocaine from flooding the streets of Europe, without grinding global trade to a halt.

Read More: The Golden Age of Cocaine is Happening Right Now This podcast is produced by the Big Take Podcast team: Supervising Producer: Vicki Vergolina, Senior Producer: Kathryn Fink, Producers: Mo Barrow, Rebecca Chaisson, Michael Falero and Federica Romaniello, Associate Producers: Sam Gebauer and Zaynab Siddiqui. Sound Design/Engineers: Raphael Amsili and Gilda Garcia.

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