‘Diving for dope’: Identity in submarine drug policing at the ‘maritime gateway to Europe’

Abstract

This article offers an ethnographic account of everyday identity (re)configuration in submarine policing by the Dutch Customs Diving Team (CDT) officers of illegal underwater drug trafficking in the Port of Rotterdam (PoR). In so doing, it explores what it means to perform drug inspections that depend on international collaboration and intelligence sharing, and also depend on the cooperation of ships’ crews, enabling the CDT to deal with challenging submarine circumstances. The findings emerge from a qualitative analysis, using an Othering framework, of data collected during fieldwork in 2011 in the PoR. The main argument of this contribution is that to prevent drug trafficking from entering in the port (and its European hinterland) and by legitimately interrupting the trade flow, the CDT must become a justifiable intervention itself. However, given the low number of drug seizures since the CDT’s inception, its legitimacy and efficacy are called into question at a time of hypersecuritization on the one hand and austere policing on the other; a bifurcating context in which CDT officers feel the need to (re)configure a superior policing Self through an inferior policed Other for which (discriminating) stigmas that exist about drug trafficking, maritime shipping and (counter-narcotics) policing are (unwillingly) used and amplified.

Getting a foot in the door. Spaces of cocaine trafficking in the Port of Rotterdam.

“…However, these dynamics of displacement are not limited to the port of Rotterdam. With opportunities to successfully import cocaine into the port of Rotterdam changing because of situational crime prevention measures, other harbours in the vicinity, like the port of Antwerp (De Middeleer et al 2018: 261;Easton 2020), Hamburg (Eski 2015), or other ports in Europe might be targeted by OCG. Equally, increased security measures in other European ports might impact the import of cocaine in Rotterdam.…”

“…Our literature overview indicates that seaports facilitate flows of illicit goods because of their logistical infrastructure and strategic location on major migratory and trade routes, thus making them ideal spaces for criminal groups to operate in (Ruggiero 2014: 154). This results in the embeddedness of both criminal activities and OCG in these spaces (Fijnaut et al 1998;Van de Bunt et al 2014;Eski 2015;Madarie and Kruisbergen 2019;Sergi 2020a, b). Apart from some notable exceptions (Eski 2015;Easton 2020;Sergi 2020a, b), ports have remained understudied as the central locality of empirical research on OC.…”

“…This results in the embeddedness of both criminal activities and OCG in these spaces (Fijnaut et al 1998;Van de Bunt et al 2014;Eski 2015;Madarie and Kruisbergen 2019;Sergi 2020a, b). Apart from some notable exceptions (Eski 2015;Easton 2020;Sergi 2020a, b), ports have remained understudied as the central locality of empirical research on OC. Therefore, by drawing on a qualitative study on cocaine trafficking in the port of Rotterdam, we aim to contribute to an improved understanding of how the dynamics of global licit and illicit flows impact local spaces, occupations, criminal activities, and crime control policies.…”

Cocaine and the port: Utopias of security, urban relations, and displacement of policing efforts in the port of Piraeus

“…A list from the local (Piraeus) to the national (Greece) to international (Europe) institutions was made based on the methodology the author has used in all other ports where previous research was conducted: Europol (one, collective), Green National Police, Customs (AADE) (one, collective), Hellenic Coast Guard (three, individual), Piraeus Port Dock Workers' Union (one, individual), Piraeus Harbour Dock Container Workers Union (one, individual), COSCO/Piraeus Container Terminal management 5 (one, individual), Port Facility Security Officer (one, individual), Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Piraeus (one, collective), Municipality of Piraeus (one, individual), were selected as accessible and relevant. It needs to be pointed out that access to such authorities and individualsespecially customsis indeed quite unique: port authorities are hard-to-reach populations (Eski, 2022). The port environment is often a hidden enclavemainly due to securitisation (Nøkleberg, 2022), where expert interviews, purposefully sampled, require a lot of effort on the side of the researcher, in terms of access (Mason, 2002).…”