Popular culture tells us that smuggling illicit drugs from overseas is a clandestine operation done in stealthy, small-scale movements with a speedboat or a private helicopter. But as it turns out, it is much easier to evade the U.S. Coast Guard and port authorities by packing up the goods in a container and having a major global carrier ship it for you. And with containers generally costing between $2,000 to $3,000 to ship, it is much cheaper too.

Drug kingpins are taking advantage of this simplified shipping plan as evidenced by the increasingly sizable drug busts that highlight a booming international drug trade. And unfortunately, the odds are in the favor of the drug smugglers. At some locations, such as the Belgian port of Zeebrugge, only one in 100 containers is X-rayed. Though this represents one of the least obstructive ports of entry, only one container of 10 is checked in most places.

In July, a ship owned by international banking behemoth JPMorgan Chase and crewed by Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) was seized en route to Rotterdam. Twenty tons of cocaine were discovered on board, which forced the two companies to forfeit $50 million to secure the ship’s release from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) authorities in Philadelphia.

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https://www.freightwaves.com/news/commentary-drug-smuggling-increases-on-the-high-seas