IThe spring sunshine of N Hamburg, with 200,000 tons of cargo vessels nearly half a mile long, piled up the same weight in the transport container, docking along the Elbe River. The crane slowly unloads the metal box, filled with everything from raw materials to food and electronics, and in some cocaine.

Between 2018 and 2023, cocaine seizures increased by 750%, marking Germany as another major European hub in expanding global trade. But the influx is not only aggravating addiction, but it also fuels corruption in a country considered one of the least corrupt countries in the world.

"We have seen the infiltration of Hamburg port infrastructure, bribing police in exchange for information, and a state prosecutor is waiting for trials to leak the information (accounted for) to the cocaine trafficking network," Daniel Brombacher said.

In 2021, police announced the largest cocaine seizure ever in Europe: 16 tons of high-purity powder hidden in jars on 1,700 walls, from Paraguay to burgers. The chief prosecutor in the case was charged in court last week with the salary of the same gang he was supposed to be prosecuted.

The man, known as Yashar G, was accused of leaking the details of the investigation to the gang and warned the suspects about to be arrested in exchange for another euro of 5,000 euros (£4,250) a month. He was arrested in October by police surveillance of the gang's encrypted communications - the main target had fled to Dubai when police raided the network shortly after the capture of Hamburg. Yashar G is also accused of leaking sensitive information to other drug gangs. He denied all allegations against him.

Colombia's cocaine production and its consumption in Western Europe reached record highs. The organized crime network in Europe also makes more money than the products distributed in platinum. A kilogram of cocaine is worth $2,000 in Colombia, but Europe used to be worth $40,000 in Europe. The profits of this huge mark are used not only for luxury cars and villas, but also for smoothing the roads for the next shipment as gangsters crawl dig their tentacles to countries including the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden and Germany.

According to Europol, Hamburg is the third largest port in the EU and is one of the most targeted ports for its drug gangs. Insiders call it dipper (including docks and transport workers, security guards and truck drivers) will not ignore drugs. This month, two Hamburg port workers were jailed for helping transport 480 kilograms of cocaine from Ecuador and physically attacked colleagues who threatened the plot.

Police launched a propaganda campaign to help port workers resist drug gangs trying to recruit or blackmail them, but Hamburg's port security forces felt so threatening that they demanded submachine guns last year. In an incident, Belgian police filed a raid on the port police in Hamburg to restore occupied cocaine.

Meanwhile, profits from cocaine overflowed into the streets of Hamburg. The city’s former bodyguard, “Carl,” said money from cocaine has become increasingly obvious over the past five years. "Every weekend, you'll see more and more young people in Ferrari, Lamborghini and the 150,000 euro Ferraris," he said. "It's not the money you earn from prostitution, scams or marijuana. It's the money for cocaine."

A series of cases in Germany also highlighted alleged corruption within the police rank: Baden-Württemberg, an official in the southwestern region, arrested senior police officers suspected of committing Hanover in Italian Ndrangheta Mafia salary, allegedly arrested a drug trafficking official on Hanover, a drug trafficking officer in January, and a police officer arrested in Bonn in August, a drug trafficker and a police officer who were accused of passing confidential information to a large part of the European drug dealer, Dutch-Moroccan mafia member.

“The cocaine monetary we witnessed in Germany and the EU over the past decade has led to an unprecedented influx of cash into organized crime,” Brownbach said. “The organized crime group has never had as much venture capital and has never been so strongly motivated to invest in bribery to ensure the business continues to move forward.”

Hamburg Port Authorities said Hamburg police have dealt with issues related to port security. "International organized criminal groups often recruit employees from the port industry to support cocaine entering Germany and Europe from South America through the Port of Hamburg. These so-called "internal port criminals" play a specific key role in this illegal drug import," a police spokesman said in a statement.

The spokesman said the police, together with customs, port authority and the private sector, “do their best to resolve this issue.” They added: "So far, in this case, Hamburg has not proven a case of bribery of police officers."

Organized crime experts warn that the true nature of corruption brought about by drug trafficking networks remains hidden.

"Germany finds it difficult to acknowledge its problems in organized crime, and today is still largely denied. The sudden influx of cocaine is just beginning to make the problem visible," said the book Mafia, a criminologist at the University of Cambridge, whose book Mafia expansion, which covers the rise of Germany's ndrangheta in Germany, published this month. “It’s a perfect storm: fragmented policing, political neglect, weak legislation, especially the combination of money laundering, and excessive data protection make Germany a paradise for criminal action.”

The lifeblood of organized crime is cocaine. But the authorities are hopeless. Although law enforcement has done all the work on the cocaine trade in Europe, the supply is abundant and unlike most products, it costs the same as 10 years ago. When the Dutch spent €524 million to improve port security in response to the wave of gang executions related to the cocaine trade, the gang had just switched to ports in France, Spain, Portugal, Scandinavia and the Baltic Sea.

Hamburg's cocaine seizures have fallen in 2024, but the drug is still arriving: Entering smaller Northern German ports on a boat or smuggling through "parasite worms", cocaine is attached to the outside of the cargo ship's hull and received by divers at the destination port.

But criminologists warn that catching the gang is not enough in itself and finding corruption requires deeper.

“Cocaine trafficking and related money laundering in Germany can only work on a large scale through the corruption of corrupt public officials and other facilitators. However, investigators focus only on perpetrators in the criminal network.” Instead, Hoffman said that, as it has done in the Netherlands, penetration of cocaine funds must be further expanded, “for facilitators, lawyers, local politicians and financial advisers, from which organized crime and its benefits are gained.”