Sabrina Medeiros, researcher at the Lusófona Centre on Global Challenges and Professor of International Relations at Universidade Lusófona, participated as a member of the panel “From Source to Shore: How Cocaine Travels from Latin American Ports to Europe’s Gateways” at the 24-hour Conference on Global Organized Crime (OC24), one of the world’s leading events dedicated to the study of transnational illicit economies.
https://oc24.heysummit.com/talks/from-source-to-shore-how-cocaine-travels-from-latin-american-ports-to-europes-gateways/
The panel, part of OC24’s 2025 edition, brought together specialists analyzing the maritime “pipeline” that moves cocaine from Latin American departure ports through transshipment hubs and into European gateways. Sabrina Medeiros contributed with research on maritime security, customs governance, and inter-agency coordination, drawing on empirical findings from port-level studies and broader Atlantic security dynamics.
The session examined how consignments are inserted upstream into logistics chains at origin ports, how they are repositioned midstream across Caribbean, Atlantic, and West African hubs, and how they enter Europe downstream through both major and secondary ports. Sabrina’s contribution emphasized the critical need to integrate customs security, maritime domain awareness, and naval operations to counter the logistical sophistication of trafficking networks.
She highlighted how insider facilitation, low scanning capacity, fragmented jurisdiction, weak data-sharing protocols, and inconsistent security standards create vulnerabilities across the maritime corridor. Her intervention aligned port-level evidence from Brazil with comparative insights from other Atlantic and European ports, demonstrating that trafficking resilience is driven not by geography alone but by governance gaps and institutional fragmentation.
OC24 is recognized internationally as a central forum bringing together academics, practitioners, law-enforcement experts, and policy-makers to discuss emerging trends in organized crime. The conference’s unique format — 24 continuous hours of global panels — enables cross-regional dialogue and real-time exchange of expertise.
