Seizures of Cocaine Powder: Patterns in Large-Scale Seizures

Refined cocaine powder, or cocaine hydrochloride, is the final refined product in the cocaine supply chain, following earlier stages of coca leaf cultivation and cocaine paste manufacturing. It is the most commonly trafficked form of cocaine across international markets and is typically prepared for retail distribution. (European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction)

We turn our attention to seizures of cocaine powder and expect similar patterns as with 'pasta basica' in the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) database on global drug seizures.

Indeed, there are around 100,000 seizures of cocaine powder recorded. Less than cocaine paste which were round 430,000. However, is the distribution of seizure sizes similar?

Only 15396 seizures are higher than 0.5 kg. As we see below, within these top seizures, the vast majority are from 0.5 to 2.5 kg in size.

What about the equality distribution? Do we see a similar pattern there?

We plot the Lorenz Curve, recalling that it is a calculation commonly used to measure inequality within a given distribution. A Lorenz curve is the visualization of a Gini Coefficient where 0 represents perfect equality and 1 perfect inequality. As it relates to this dataset, a score of 0 would suggest that all seizures had the same amount of cocaine powder and a score of 1 would represent that only one seizure had 100% of the total seized cocaine powder.

Our Gini coefficient is very similar: 0.973712

Only 1881 seizures were of more than 500kn of cocaine powder. Below, we see the regions in which the seizures were made.

Note: These figures represent seizures, not overall drug trafficking volumes.

Bibliography:

European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. Cocaine Trafficking in Europe. European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA), 2023, www.euda.europa.eu/cocaine-trafficking-europe_en. Accessed 28 Mar. 2025.

UNODC (2024), UNODC Research - Data Portal – Drug Trafficking & Cultivation. https://dataunodc.un.org/dp-drug-seizures (Accessed on [02/02/2025]).