4 Immigrants and trafficking in consumer countries

Dominance in the exporting sector does not imply dominance by the same nationalities in the smuggling business or in high level
distribution in the consuming countries. However that seems to be the case for cocaine and heroin (Paoli & Reuter, 2008).

Immigrant communities have substantial advantages in the consuming country as well as their own. For example, their
communities are likely to provide less co-operation with the police. Even language can be a major asset; for example, few
police departments are able to conduct effective wiretaps or other electronic surveillances of various Chinese languages.
They have better opportunities for exit and weaker licit market opportunities than most of the native population. Continuing
immigration can serve as a source of new entrepreneurs and reduce the effectiveness of enforcement interventions, as may
have been the case with organized crime and Italian immigration in the early part of the 20th century.

Many wealthy nations see foreign groups as critical to the import of drugs. Table 2 lists a few consumer countries and the
immigrant groups thought to play a major role in the heroin or cocaine industry:

Most of these associations are easily explicable, since the immigrant groups come from the trafficking regions. There are few
Afghanis in Britain but many immigrants from the neighbouring Pakistan. Morocco a traditional producer and consumer of
hashish, has sent many emigrants to France. The Balkans has long been a transhipment area for heroin entering Europe. The
only one that is difficult to explain is the involvement of West Africans in the Scandinavian heroin trade but that may reflect
the considerations discussed in the Smuggling section.

The European literature is particularly rich and consistent on the role of immigrants. For example, Killias (1997) reports the
dominance of immigrants in every level of the drug trade in Zurich; “In 1992, in Zurich Canton, Swiss nationals were only
37 percent of suspected drug traffickers and 14 percent of suspected drug importers.” (p 386). Interpol (n.d.) reports that
seizures of heroin involving Turkish nationals accounted for 40 percent of the total 11.2 tonnes seized in 1996 in Europe.
“The existence of Turkish communities, roughly totalling over 3 million in Western European countries, had given the
opportunity among Turkish criminal groups to create a ready network for transport and redistribution of heroin in Western
Europe.” (p 18).

The variety of groups involved is impressive. Albrecht (1997; p 64-65) reports on the shift in the nationality of drug sellers
in Frankfurt. In the 1980s, there were many from Sub-Saharan Africa; intense enforcement eliminated these nationalities
from the trade and they were then replaced by North Africans. Albanians are prominent in the Swiss market (Killias, 1997).
Ruggiero (2000) supplements this finding through his study of the source country Albanian population, finding that drug
dealing and importation are important activities for immigrants, many of whom go to Italy. Paoli & Reuter (2008) note that
Albanians from Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia are all active in the trade, suggesting the importance of ethnic and kinship
ties rather than nationality. Arlacchi 2004 notes that Albanian immigration to Western Europe totals almost 1.4 million, about
20 percent of the Albanian populations of the sending region.

Even in the United States, where traffickers are forced to be much more discreet than in the source country, it appears that
the high levels of the cocaine trade are primarily the province of immigrant groups. That is, the principal figures in the import
sector are not US nationals but come from the producer or transhipment countries; China, Colombia, Mexico for heroin;
Colombia and Mexico for cocaine.

Paoli & Reuter (2008) suggest five factors that may explain why certain drug markets are dominated by particular immigrant
groups associated with producing or transhipment countries: low socio-economic status and cultural marginalization; a large
diaspora; strong family and locality ties; close proximity to the production and trafficking routes; lax enforcement in their
home countries. It is also interesting that the immigrant role is specific to imported drugs (not synthetics) and to certain sales
settings (mostly street markets rather than closed locations).

17 These broad statements come from interviews with officials and researchers in these nations, as well as the literature, much of it not scholarly.