By Azmat Haroon
Doha: Although the amount of illicit drugs seized in Qatar is relatively low so far, drug cartels from Brazil and Argentina are now using Qatar as a transit point to take their deadly contrabands to other countries in the Gulf region, according to an expert.
Reports show that Qatar most recently seized nearly 75 percent of narcotics that traffickers were trying to smuggle here from South America. “It’s a very small amount that they have seized in Qatar but we can see from recent activity that Qatar is a new route for drug traffickers from Brazil and Argentina, among other countries, who are using the route to expand their illicit trade in the Gulf region,” Johan Obdola, president of the Vancouver-based International Organisation for Security and Intelligence (IOSI), told The Peninsula yesterday.
He was speaking in Doha on the sidelines of the Homeland Security Summit organised by Fleming Gulf.
The activity of criminal organisations from Latin American countries is rapidly increasing in the region, according to Obdola, who also said that ‘narco-terrorism’ was becoming a major security challenge for Gulf countries.
Last September, officials in Argentina identified Ezeiza-Doha as an emerging drug trafficking route, South American daily La Nacion reported.
In two weeks, six cases were reported in which criminal groups attempted to smuggle deadly contraband on Qatar Airways flights from Ezeiza International Airport near Buenos Aires to Doha.
In Qatar, authorities also caught an Argentinian trying to smuggle a dangerous consignment of cocaine last year.
Obdola, the former chief of Latin American bureau of InterPort Police in Canada, said that most drug cartels were interested in expanding their businesses here due to the wealth associated with the region.
“If you mention Dubai and Kuwait to anyone in the underworld, people say it’s money. And where there is money, there is opportunity for criminal activity. We know there is a small Mexican criminal cell operating in Dubai.” He said that drug cartels had one of the most effective business structures in the world.
Some of them were so ahead in their trade and they were manufacturing their own ‘narcotics-submarines’.
“They are businessmen, just like we have in any other trade. They come from all sorts of nationalities and backgrounds and speak different languages.”
Many criminal groups go around the world to hire lawyers, economists and experts from universities. Before bringing a drug into a new country, drug cartels supply small amounts of substances to gauge the reaction of locals and the law enforcement agencies.
According to some estimates, the illicit trade of drugs amounts to more than $350bn every year. “We have information about Al Qaeda operations in Latin America, although it has never been confirmed by the government. I don’t think they are there for terrorist attacks but because of business,” Obdola said, adding the situation can potentially get out of control.
Obdola and his team are trying to set up a new office to look into drug-trafficking in the Gulf. The initiative aims to bring experts from the private and government sectors to work together to help law enforcement agencies here tackle the issue before it escalates.
“It will break the bureaucracy that sometimes stops the information coming through. The security forces here need to know the latest modus operandi of drug cartels in different parts of the world.”
