Traffickers use Polish-flagged yachts to move drugs across Atlantic

Polish-flagged yachts are being used by criminals to export cocaine and other drugs across the Atlantic from South America to Europe and elsewhere, the UN and maritime authorities have warned.

Drug traffickers are taking advantage of a legal loophole giving Polish vessels “de facto immunity” from arrest in international waters, said Julien Garsany, Brussels representative of the UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

“When other countries see a vessel flying the Polish flag and [it’s] suspected to be involved in drug trafficking, they basically have no one to authorise them to board it,” said Garsany.

The UN has long been concerned about vessels sailing under flags that are completely unrelated to the ownership of the boat — so-called flags of convenience that can help smugglers avoid scrutiny at sea.

Poland’s has become the latest flag in vogue with criminals, who are exploiting the rush by British and other boat-owners to use the EU country’s cheap registration system for small sailing yachts and other boats up to 24m long, according to maritime law enforcement authorities.

The Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre — Narcotics (MAOC-N), a joint US, UK and European operations centre for narcotics traffic based in Lisbon and focusing mainly on smaller vessels, has registered an increase in Polish-flagged pleasure craft suspected of carrying drugs since 2021.

While MAOC-N was monitoring 12 Polish-flagged vessels potentially linked to trafficking in 2021, that number rose to 31 in 2022 and 47 last year. Boats appear on the organisation’s radar due to intelligence tip-offs, ongoing investigations and suspicious vessel or crew movements.

“If you are a trafficker you will want to . . . sail through with as few obstacles as possible. And a European member state flag is normally not really drawing a lot of attention, especially in the Atlantic,” said Garsany.

Poland set up a new boat registration system in 2020 for vessels up to 24m, financed by the EU. The number of boat registrations has rocketed from about 2,000 initially to almost 77,000 to date, with just over a third of owners giving an address outside Poland, according to Polish authorities.

“It’s cheap, it’s superfast and it doesn’t require much information. So obviously the criminals will try to register on that,” said a MAOC-N analyst. “It’s a fantastic business.”

According to MAOC-N and the UNODC, criminals may be exploiting the fact that Poland is not properly implementing international rules that would allow other countries to board Polish-flagged vessels at sea. This means that suspected drug smugglers have been able to get away provided they do not enter the enforcing country’s territorial waters.

Two years ago, for example, Portuguese authorities searched a Polish-flagged vessel at sea off the Azores islands, arresting two Dutch nationals and seizing 1.2 tonnes of cocaine.

A Portuguese judge later ruled that the operation was unlawful due to Poland not authorising it. Although a court overruled that decision earlier this year, Portuguese media reported that the two suspects had in the meantime been freed and left Portugal, thus avoiding prosecution.

The Polish police’s central bureau of investigation, which is supposed to issue permits to board vessels, cannot do so currently because a recent amendment to drugs legislation is yet to come into force, according to the country’s health ministry, which is in charge of implementing the UN convention against drug trafficking.

Numerous websites offer Polish yacht registrations from prices as low as €395, and some also propose the establishment of a UK or Delaware company as owner of the boat — in effect allowing clients to obscure their identity when registering.

Since the new registration system was implemented, seizures of Polish-flagged boats carrying cocaine and other drugs have increased.

MAOC-N has reported 19 seizures of small Polish vessels, most of them from 2021 onwards. Law enforcers seized more than 18 tonnes of cannabis, 13.5 tonnes of cocaine and 56kg of MDMA (ecstasy) from yachts and motor boats sailing under a Polish flag, including off the coasts of Portugal, Brazil, Cabo Verde and Guinea-Bissau.

“What we started seeing some years ago is a huge movement of cocaine from South America to west Africa . . . because the criminals know it’s easier for us to target [them] if they are going directly to Europe,” said the MAOC-N analyst, adding that vessels coming from west Africa to Europe may be checked less frequently for narcotics than those coming directly from South America.

While Poland’s flag is now particularly popular for small vessels, other flags such as those of the UK and the Netherlands were used in the past, according to MAOC-N. The Netherlands in 2021 changed its rules around boat certificates after revelations they had been used by drug traffickers.”

The Polish infrastructure ministry said that it was aware of reports about “incidents of drug smuggling on board [yachts] flying the Polish flag,” but had “no information about the involvement of organised criminal groups in these incidents”.

It also said that “considering the number of watercraft in the register — over 70,000 — this is not large-scale.” The ministry pledged to review the drugs trafficking problem raised by the Financial Times but at this stage was “not aware of any concerns from international law enforcement authorities”.

Poland’s health ministry said Warsaw hoped to facilitate inspections of Polish-flagged boats by the end of the year. “Competent authorities in Poland are working on legislative changes . . . which will allow them [the police] to issue such permits,” the ministry said.