“Seventy euros for one, 120 for two,” said the cocaine dealer as the young woman opened his door on Paris’s chic Left Bank.
“I’m like all the delivery riders out there dropping off sushi and groceries fast around Paris,” he smiled. “I receive orders and I deliver them.”
In many of Europe’s largest cities, obtaining cocaine is now as easy as ordering a pizza.
Twenty minutes after placing your order by WhatsApp or Signal, a dealer can be at your doorstep.
“Consumers prefer to go to a forum and have their drugs delivered by a person who looks like a Deliveroo rider,” said Police Commissioner Virginie Lahaye, head of the Paris drugs squad. “It’s a lot easier than moving to some serious place in the suburbs.”
According to the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), some 3.5 million Europeans will take cocaine in 2021 – four times more than 20 years ago.
With 240 tonnes seized in 2021, almost five times more than a decade ago, Eric Snoeck, the head of the Belgian federal police, said the continent was hit by a “tsunami” of cocaine, according to Europol.