Organised crime gangs are recruiting top foreign scientists to chemically alter cocaine at a molecular level, allowing it to bond to materials such as cardboard, plastic, glue, and charcoal. This process enables the drug to be smuggled across borders without detection by customs officials.
The scientists carry out the chemical concealment in laboratories overseas before flying to the UK to reverse-engineer the process and extract the hidden cocaine. The National Crime Agency (NCA) disrupted the first UK-based laboratory of this kind in late 2024 but warns that methods are becoming increasingly sophisticated.
Graeme Biggar, the NCA's director general, said at the launch of the agency's annual strategic threat assessment: 'The cocaine is not hidden inside a box of bananas, it is the box of bananas. This is organised crime operating at the technological frontier and our response has grown in sophistication to match it.' He added that drugs are the 'biggest single driver of serious crime' in Britain and the root of half of homicides, thefts, and robberies.
The NCA, in collaboration with international partners, seized 230 tonnes of class A drugs last year, with cocaine being the most prominent, having a potential street value of £18 billion. Biggar noted that middle-class 'dinner party' use of cocaine continues to drive demand. Seizures of ketamine, a bladder-destroying animal tranquiliser, have also risen by 42% to 1,092kg in the year to March 2025, while cannabis seizures increased by 71% to 127 tonnes.
Biggar warned that synthetic opioids, particularly nitazenes which are up to 500 times stronger than heroin, now pose 'the biggest risk' in the fight against illegal drugs, having already caused 1,000 deaths since they emerged in Britain.
