Mexican cartels are no longer merely shipping drugs to Europe. Now, they are also exporting laboratory specialists—known as “cooks”—to produce methamphetamine, process cocaine, and operate high-capacity drug labs within the European Union.
The Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel are spearheading this criminal expansion, forging alliances with European networks that provide transportation, distribution, front companies, corrupt connections, and money laundering services.
The risk, as warned by Europol and the DEA, is far greater than that posed by traditional drug trafficking; Europe has ceased to be solely a zone for consumption or transit and has begun transforming into a production hub—raising the additional fear that this infrastructure could, in the future, pave the way for synthetic drugs such as fentanyl.
From Drug Exporters to Providers of Specialists
Mexican criminal organizations are not merely shipping cargoes of methamphetamine and cocaine from Latin America to the European Union. They are also deploying operatives with chemical expertise onto European soil to set up, manage, or bolster clandestine laboratories.
These specialists are highly prized by European criminal networks because they have mastered high-yield methamphetamine production methods. Their role is not limited to simply “cooking” drugs.
They also introduce techniques for recycling chemical waste, minimizing waste, producing larger crystals, and boosting the potency and profitability of the final product.
In addition to methamphetamine, these groups are involved in cocaine extraction and conversion processes within clandestine European laboratories.
