In Hamburg’s spring sunshine, 200,000-tonne cargo ships almost a quarter of a mile long, piled high with the same weight in shipping containers, are docked quayside along the Elbe River. Cranes slowly offload the metal boxes packed with everything from raw materials to food and electronics, and, in some, cocaine.
Between 2018 and 2023 cocaine seizures rose by 750%, marking out Germany as another major European hub in the ever-expanding global trade. But the influx is not just ramping up addiction, it is also fuelling corruption in a country perceived as being one of the least corrupt in the world.
