Security agency projects rise in cocaine imports

The volume of imported cocaine in Hungary is expected to increase with a change in transit patterns, the National Security Office (NBH) said in its 2008 annual report published on Friday.

Transit opportunities have been enhanced by, for example, the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the European Union, the NBH.

The increase in volume is expected to result in lower prices, which is likely to mean more casual and regular drug use in the country, the report says.

Drugs are imported to Hungary via two main routes: heroin and opium derivatives from Afghanistan and marihuana and synthetic drugs from the Netherlands.

But cocaine from South America is now finding its way from the east via the same routes as heroin and opium rather from western European ports.

Hungary is a transit country for Turkish and Arab groups with legal wholesale activities as a cover-up for their drug trafficking. The import of drugs from western Europe is much less structured, said the report.

Synthetic drugs are not produced in any significant amounts in Hungary, especially since stricter regulations have been introduced on the sale of substances used for making such drugs, the NBH said. However, much of the demand for marihuana is satisfied from local produce, unlike ten years ago, when professional marihuana production was almost nonexistent in Hungary.

The NBH sees Hungary as a growing market for disco drugs that are mostly imported from the Netherlands.

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