A year-old Brazilian man on a flight to Dublin from Lisbon in October became agitated, collapsed, and later died after one of 80 cocaine pellets, holding nearly 2 pounds of cocaine, burst in his stomach. In another recent case, a Colombian woman flying into Berlin was stopped and searched by airport officials.
The woman, who had complained of severe pain, eventually admitted she was carrying 2. For you. World globe An icon of the world globe, indicating different international options.
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The human body. Smugglers may also attempt to go through various types of border barriers; strategies include cutting holes in the barriers and bribing border officials to provide keys to openings in them. Smugglers may also move illicit drugs around border barriers.
For instance, along the Southwest border, they may use boats to move contraband around fencing that extends into the Pacific Ocean, move drugs over land areas without constructed barriers, or smuggle goods through the POEs.
A key question policymakers may ask is what effect an increase in border barrier length or enhancement of barrier style might have on drug smuggling between the POEs. A comprehensive analysis of this issue is confounded by a number of factors, the most fundamental being that the exact quantity of illicit drugs flowing into the United States is unknown.
Without this baseline, analysts, enforcement officials, and policymakers rely on other data points to help inform whether or how border barriers may affect illicit drug smuggling. Specifically, they may question whether or how additional border barrier construction might substantially alter drug smugglers' routes, tactics, speed, or abilities to breach these barriers and bring contraband into the country, and whether or how it has done so in the past.
B order officials are dually responsible for facilitating the lawful flow of people and goods, while at the same time preventing unauthorized entries and stopping illicit drugs and other contraband from entering the United States.
As such, policy discussions around border security often involve questions about how illicit drugs flow into the country. Mexican transnational criminal organizations TCOs are a dominant influence in the U.
Drug intelligence 4 and seizure data 5 provide some insight into drug smuggling into the country. Generally, intelligence suggests that more foreign-produced cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, and fentanyl flow into the country through official ports of entry POEs than between the ports.
Seizure data from U. Conversely, more foreign-produced marijuana has historically been believed to flow into the country between the ports rather than through them. While indicators suggest that large amounts of illicit drugs are flowing through POEs and that drug seizures are more concentrated at the ports, it is the flows between them that have been a primary topic of recent policy discussions around border security. It briefly describes how these drugs are smuggled between the ports and then illuminates the discussion of how border barriers may shift or disrupt smuggling methods and routes.
Notably, there are no data that capture the total quantity of foreign-produced illicit drugs smuggled into the United States at or between POEs; drugs successfully smuggled into the country have evaded seizure by border officials and are generally not quantifiable.
By weight, marijuana continues to be the illicit drug most-seized by border officials both at and between POEs, though total annual marijuana seizures have declined both at and between the ports in recent years. While marijuana remains the primary drug seized by the Border Patrol between POEs, the annual quantity seized, in pounds, has declined since FY see Figure 1.
Conversely, the amount of methamphetamine seized by the Border Patrol has increased annually since FY, and seizures of cocaine, heroin, and fentanyl have fluctuated. Figure 1. Source: Created by CRS. As of the date of this report, only FY—FY full-year seizure data are available at the website.
FY and FY data were previously available at the same website, as recently as January Smugglers employ a variety of methods to move illicit drugs into the United States between POEs, through land, aerial, and subterranean routes. Specifically, there has been some debate about how physical barriers along the Southwest border between the POEs may deter or alter the smuggling of foreign-produced, illicit drugs into the country.
Since the early s, there have been efforts to build barriers along the Southwest border, in part, to deter the unauthorized entry of migrants and smugglers. For instance, the January 25, , Executive Order stated that it is executive branch policy to "secure the southern border of the United States through the immediate construction of a physical wall on the southern border, monitored and supported by adequate personnel so as to prevent illegal immigration, drug and human trafficking, and acts of terrorism.
Drug trafficking is a global illicit trade involving the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of substances which are subject to drug prohibition laws. UNODC is continuously monitoring and researching global illicit drug markets in order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of their dynamics.
Drug trafficking is a key part of this research. Further information can be found in the yearly World Drug Report. At current levels, world heroin consumption tons and seizures represent an annual flow of tons of heroin into the global heroin market. Of that total, opium from Myanmar and the Lao People's Democratic Republic yields some 50 tons, while the rest, some tons of heroin and morphine, is produced exclusively from Afghan opium.
While approximately 5 tons are consumed and seized in Afghanistan, the remaining bulk of tons is trafficked worldwide via routes flowing into and through the countries neighbouring Afghanistan. Over the last few years, there has been a sudden increase of reported seizures of high purity crystalline Methamphetamine locally known as "Shisheh".
National authorities have also detected greater reliance on in-country production of ATS, mostly Methamphetamines.
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