Malta’s Drug Trafficking Trade Explained: Big Transit Loads, Small Local Streams

Spunt Malta
Sep 3
8 min read

Malta is at the heart of a global drug network

Malta’s geostrategic location in the Mediterranean makes it ideal for transhipping. At the Malta Freeport in Birżebbuġa, roughly 96% of the cargo is just offloaded until it is reloaded onto another vessel to carry its way on to its final destination. This shipping concept is a blessing for the Maltese economy – importation of goods which would otherwise not be economically feasible to export to tiny, isolated Malta, becomes possible.

Similarly, this offers an opportunity for drug traffickers to exploit the sheer volume and tight turnarounds to move cocaine and cannabis resin across the Mediterranean. Maltese Customs officers, helped by profiling and scanners, now make regular drug hauls from containers that are not intended for Malta. The odd shipment, though, is aimed squarely at the local market. Distinguishing the two flows, and understanding how the domestic drug trade works, reveals how a tiny island is plugged into a continental drug economy.

Notes on sources and scope

Figures and cases cited in this article draw on official statements and Maltese press reporting of seizures at the Malta Freeport and the Malta International Airport (2021–2025). The article also draws from EU-level analyses by EU-SOCTA 2025 and EU Drug Markets on containerised cocaine, port infiltration and brokered supply chains. Where court cases are pending, descriptors reflect allegations as reported. Key references include Times of Malta and other local outlets for specific seizures, EUDA and Europol for market structure, and WCO for displacement risks.

The long routes in: containers, couriers, cars and post

The local headlining drug busts typically involve drugs shipped in refrigerated boxes stuffed with fruit or frozen foods on large container ships that feed Europe’s principal seaborne trading routes. In 2021, 740 kg of cocaine were pulled from a 40-foot refrigerated shipping container (reefer). This had been a record drug haul, if only for a brief period of time. In fact, during a Freeport scan in May 2022, Malta recorded its largest single drug bust: 1.5 tonnes of cocaine (street value between €80 million and €130 million), hidden among bananas in a Colombia-to-Slovenia reefer. Later that year customs officers found 800 kg of high-purity cocaine in another banana box from Turbo (Colombia) bound for Mersin (Turkey), and, five months after that, 610 kg again in bananas from Ecuador. Such consignments were all transshipment finds: they were never meant to touch the Maltese street, but they did pass through Maltese scanners.

Cocaine-related drug busts are on the rise

This pattern continued in 2023 and 2024, with smaller but significant busts: 270 kg of cocaine in two banana containers en route from Ecuador to Koper (Slovenia); 97 kg concealed in cable drums; 30 kg tucked into jumbo peanut packs; and 4.3 tonnes of cannabis resin hidden in the frames of “industrial ovens” shipped from Morocco to Libya. In December 2024 customs and police seized another 300 kg of cocaine in a Guayaquil-to-Piraeus container; in January 2025, 250 kg on the same Ecuador-to-Greece corridor; and in March 2025, 98 kg hidden among frozen shrimp headed for Genoa. All were flagged during profiling and scans at the Freeport—again, transit cargo.

Leakages

Not every consignment is “just passing through.” In November 2024, officers intercepted 146 kg of cocaine hidden among sacks of unperforated plastic buttons in a radiator-spares container; police later alleged it was bound for the Maltese market. A fortnight later, 100 kg were found in a cable roll in what authorities presented as a separate case. And in May 2025, police arrested a Freeport employee and seized 35 kg of cocaine which, investigators said, he had extracted from a container and stashed on site to siphon out gradually for domestic distribution.

Alongside these diversions at the Freeport, other channels also supply Malta directly. Customs and police record steady flows by air, sea and even by post; all of different in scale from container hauls, but clearly aimed at the domestic market. At the Malta International Airport, customs and police stop the occasional mule or suitcase loads. For example, on 5 May 2025, a passenger from Seville was arrested with 11 kg of drugs (10 kg cannabis and 1 kg cocaine) in his luggage. Later, in July of the same year, another traveller was found to have swallowed around a kilo of high-purity cocaine. In early August 2025, a car off the Sicily catamaran yielded 15 kg of cannabis, 3 kg of suspected cocaine and hundreds of ecstasy pills hidden in false compartments. Mailing of parcels also did their bit: on 21 August 2025 police said they ran a controlled delivery that netted roughly €200,000 worth of MDMA to a Gżira recipient. Although these busts are in smaller volumes, they clearly show intent for local sale.

Why containers keep coming: Europe’s cocaine logistics

Malta’s experience mirrors Europe’s broader “containerisation” of cocaine. Europol and the EU Drugs Agency (EUDA, formerly EMCDDA) describe various methods on how drugs are trafficked using international shipments. The most common is the rip-on/rip-off method, where traffickers without the shipper’s knowledge, load drugs at the port of departure into a container. Once at destination, an extraction team retrieves the consignment at or near the arrival port. The extraction team typically relies on corrupt or intimidated insiders to identify the target container, know where it sits, and help with extraction.

The second method is release-code thefts (also called “PIN-code” or container-reference code fraud). Here, a box is cleared for pickup, terminals use unique release credentials (typically a PIN or reference code) so a haulier can collect it. Criminal networks steal or buy those codes by corrupting staff, phishing, or hacking logistics systems; with a valid code, they can divert or collect the entire container without setting foot inside the terminal. Europol flagged the misappropriation of container reference codes as a growing modus operandi at major European ports (port authorities have responded by replacing PINs with digital “secure chain”).

All of this is enabled by insider facilitation. Insiders could be dockworkers, truckers or shipping/forwarding staff with access to cargo data. Europol is blunt: corruption is the key enabler of port infiltration; the EUDA likewise notes that corruption is “indispensable” because criminals need container identifiers, seal numbers and yard locations. Recent reporting from other EU ports (e.g., Hamburg) underlines the scale of insider compromise pressures.

But why the rising seizures at the Freeport?

The drug supply chain, particularly that of cocaine, is hard to dent. Even when authorities make record seizures at the giant European ports (such as those at Antwerp/Rotterdam), prices and availability change little. This indicates that the general level of supply remains broadly unaffected, which happens for two reasons:

Traffickers don’t rely on a single route or port. They maintain multiple origin points, carriers, concealment methods, brokers, and ports. When one shipment is seized, another one in a different port takes its place with minimal delay.
When one country increases enforcement on a big hub, traffickers quickly displace flows to smaller or more peripheral ports in the Mediterranean, or shift to other modes (parcels, vehicle ferries, different commodities to hide in).

Balkan and Italian criminal networks have mastered the shipping logistics and brokered supply lines from Latin America.

The implication for Malta is that as enforcement is increased in major European hot spots, traffic is redirected towards flexible waypoints such as that of Malta. This calls for coordinated enforcement, port security, and intelligence cooperation across the entire European network.

The local market: small, solvent—and increasingly cocaine-centric

Of more interest to us is how Malta fits within the global drug trafficking Market. Malta’s domestic demand is showing a steady shift. The latest national report (covering data through 2022) shows average street-level cocaine purity rising to about 51%, up from 28% in 2020; cannabis potency has stabilised around 11% THC (a measure of weed potency).

Treatment data shows cocaine gaining ground as a primary problem drug among first-time entrants, while injecting among cocaine users remains rare. On the street, a Times of Malta report described a nightlife where cocaine is “easily obtainable,” with typical prices around €80–€100 per gram. That aligns with EUDA’s picture of high-purity, high-availability powder across Europe. Such availability is made possible by a structured distribution system. Once a shipment is aimed at Malta, traffickers rely on brokers and compromised insiders to move drugs from the pier into the local market.

From pier to pavement: how domestic distribution works

Shipments aimed at Malta follow a standard workplan. A brokered network identifies a container and a concealment method; port references or physical access are obtained (often, investigators allege, via compromised or intimidated insiders). Extraction is either “hot”—drugs removed quickly inside the terminal and re-hidden nearby for gradual pick-up—or “cold,” where the box is lawfully released and diverted to a warehouse for stripping. The 146 kg bust of cocaine hidden in a container transporting sacks of unperforated buttons case looks like a case of hot extraction. Meanwhile, the case involving the 37-year-old port worker in connection to a 35kg cocaine bust, fits with a case of cold extraction.

Once transferred, the product is split among mid-level handlers, then parcelled into street packages. The last mile is flexible: nightlife hand-to-hand, doorstep drop-offs arranged via encrypted messaging, and on occasion piggybacking on courier models that blur into licit delivery work. In 2023, for instance, a Times of Malta sting found an illegal “club” using Telegram and food couriers to deliver cannabis and psychedelics.

Who are the traffickers?

The people behind the local trade are not a single “Maltese mafia” but a patchwork. Domestic groups often co-operate with external suppliers, including Italian clans with interests around Sicily and Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta brokers, while Balkan actors have grown influential in the Atlantic leg. Arrests in Malta occasionally surface suspects wanted in Sicilian cases, suggesting proximity more than hierarchy. Europol’s mapping of port infiltration—and Malta’s own cases—points to opportunistic partnerships that plug a small island into a continental marketplace.

Policy and risk: a small island in a big market

As the EU tightens its response to port corruption and container risk, displacement towards smaller ports like the Malta Freeport is a real concern. For Malta, this presents a two-edged sword: on one hand, Malta must brace for more trafficking via the Freeport, where tighter controls could potentially disrupt regular import process vital for the local economy. At the same time, the risk of leakages increases, as local drug distributors can increase their piggybacking of European drug trafficking through the Freeport.