Author(s)

Daniel Brombacher

Posted on 23 Sep 2026

On 15 July 2026, German authorities dismantled a methamphetamine laboratory in Ludwigsfelde, a small city in the state of Brandenburg, around 10 kilometres south of Berlin. With a population of around 30 000, this city had not previously been a significant location on the global organized crime map. However, police arrested three Mexican nationals at the drug-production site, pointing to the international links of the local criminal network that ran the operation.

This is not the first time that Mexican nationals have been found at drug production sites in Europe. Between 2019 and 2020, a total of 19 Mexican meth ‘cooks’ were arrested in raids on methamphetamine laboratories in the Netherlands and Belgium. The expansion of Mexican organized crime groups into Europe was documented in a joint report by the US Drug Enforcement Agency and Europol in 2022. And in 2025, authorities dismantled a synthetic drug laboratory in Marseille with alleged ties to the Sinaloa cartel, while in the same year four Mexican citizens were arrested in Poland in connection with a methamphetamine laboratory.

Europe now as a destination

As early as the 1980s, Spain was used by Colombian drug traffickers as a safe haven from which to build relationships with local criminal networks. Mexican organized crime groups allegedly began establishing a foothold in European drug markets in the late 1990s and early noughties. However, they primarily used Europe as a transit region to supply drug markets farther east.

But this limited scope of Latin American criminal operations in Europe appears to be undergoing fundamental changes. While Spain was long the European gateway for criminal networks from the region, some groups have expanded towards Central and Eastern Europe, with Romania and Bulgaria reportedly becoming key hubs. The CJNG and the Sinaloa cartel have built up local networks in these countries, which are strategically positioned along the Balkan route, one of Europe’s principal drug trafficking corridors.

This goes hand in hand with a new level of threat: Europe is no longer merely a transit hub for Latin American criminal actors or a destination for criminal specialists such as methamphetamine chemists. There are growing signs that Latin American criminal groups are establishing operational hubs in Europe to exploit the continent’s diverse criminal revenue opportunities.

Given the United States’ increased pressure on Latin American organized crime groups and the region’s widespread return to more heavy-handed responses to organized crime, the enhanced European operations of Latin American criminals may be a direct consequence of their shrinking spaces in the Americas. Although the 2025 US designation of Latin American organized crime groups as foreign terrorist organizations has had little impact on criminal behaviour in the region, Europe may have become less risky for some criminal activities, such as money laundering and other private-sector related activities. Relocating parts of their operations to Europe reduces risk and enables expansion into a thriving criminal ecosystem in which Latin American expertise and networks are often welcomed by European counterparts.

A widening criminal footprint

Mexican criminal organizations have reportedly moved beyond producing methamphetamine, forming partnerships with a wide range of domestic criminal networks in the lucrative cocaine market. Although Colombian networks still play a decisive role in supplying Europe with cocaine, Mexican groups such as the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) have increased their involvement in Spain’s cocaine trade while remaining active in the methamphetamine market, as recent arrests in Catalonia show.

But their involvement in European criminal markets goes beyond drugs. In August 2026, four alleged CJNG members were arrested in Prague for reportedly seeking to procure military-style weapons. Similarly, in April 2025, Spain extradited a Bulgarian national to the United States who had been charged with conspiracy to supply military-grade weapons to the CJNG.

Criminal actors from other Latin American countries are also becoming increasingly active in Europe. In 2021, Spanish authorities arrested ‘Pipo’ Chavarría, the leader of the Ecuadorian gang Los Lobos, in Málaga, where he had been hiding after faking his own death. In November 2025, Portuguese authorities arrested ‘Hulk’, a leading figure in the Brazilian organized crime group Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC), which is believed to have a substantial presence in Portugal. Also in November 2025, Spanish authorities dismantled a local chapter of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua in Barcelona and several other Spanish cities. The previous year, authorities in Barcelona detained the brother of Tren de Aragua leader Héctor ‘Niño’ Guerrero, who was killed in a joint US–Venezuelan operation in June 2026.

While the European expansion of Los Lobos, the PCC and Tren de Aragua still appears to be focused on Spain and Portugal, the same was originally true for other Latin American networks that subsequently integrated into European criminal ecosystems. The European organized crime landscape is highly fragmented and, with a few exceptions, is characterized by relatively flat structures and fluid networks. This makes it easier for external groups to integrate into lucrative local markets.

There are already signs of organized crime groups on both sides of the Atlantic learning from each other, and crime-as-a-service models have become a key driver in building new networks between Latin American and European criminal groups, for example in the synthetic drugs and cocaine markets. Criminal groups in Mexico have a long trajectory of increasing expertise in drug production and are generally quick adapters and learners.

The tendency of some Latin American organized crime groups to use violence to control and access markets could contribute to the growing trend of drug-related violence in Europe. While much attention has recently been paid to the expansion of European organized crime groups into Latin America, this trend now appears to be unfolding in reverse, exposing Europe to an additional criminal challenge in an already complicated threat landscape. The geopolitical effects of the United States’ clampdown on Latin American organized crime groups, coupled with heavy-handed responses to crime in Latin America, are likely to be felt even more strongly in Europe in the years ahead. Europe must therefore remain vigilant and strengthen its resilience to the displacement of criminal activity from the Western Hemisphere.

Photo: © Europol