Cartel Production Moves Onshore in Europe, Experts Warn in Oko Press Interview

In a recent interview with Polish News outlet Oko Press, Dr. Vanda Felbab-Brown and Dr. Robert Bunker discussed cartel activity in Poland and Central Europe. The report describes an organized effort that sends cartel-affiliated methamphetamine producers into rural areas to run hidden laboratories and coordinate with established European criminal networks. It links this activity to expanding meth production in Central and Eastern Europe and cartel efforts to move precursor chemicals into the region.

Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel already operates in Poland and Central Europe. But instead of smuggling drugs, they send cooks who produce them [methamphetamines] in laboratories hidden in villages.

This discussion connects to SWJ El Centro reporting on narco-submarine interdictions off Europe’s coasts that track cartel logistics moving by sea into European markets. Those interdictions, paired with onshore production reporting, point to a transnational supply system that links labs, distribution networks, and maritime routes. Together, these threads show the operational reach and partnering strategy that cartels pursue across the European theater.

Dr. Felbab-Brown serves as Senior Director of the Brookings Institution’s Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors and as a Senior Fellow in the Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology. Dr. Bunker serves as an Associate Editor at Small Wars Journal’s El Centro and as a Research Fellow with Arizona State University’s Future Security Initiative.

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