A submarine carrying 6.6 tons of high-purity cocaine, valued at over R$ 2 billion, was seized in March 2025 in the Azores archipelago region of Portugal, during a joint operation by Portuguese police and Navy. The shipment originated from the city of Macapá, capital of Amapá, located at the mouth of the Amazon River, on the Brazilian coast.
The seizure highlighted a transformation in the geography of transnational crime. According to a report by the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), the Brazilian Amazon, under the influence of the Rio de Janeiro faction Comando Vermelho, has consolidated as one of the main drug export corridors toward the European continent.
The document "Brazilian Amazon: New Corridors and Control of Transnational Drug Trafficking," released on Thursday, details how increased repression at ports traditionally used for trafficking forced criminal organizations to seek new export routes through the Amazon region.
