Cocaine seizures reached new highs in 2024 alongside potential cocaine manufacture.
Both cocaine manufacture and seizures hit record levels in 2024. Global potential cocaine manufacture rose more than fourfold over the period 2014-2024, while cocaine seizures, largely driven by seizures in South America, have broadly kept pace. There is a very strong positive correlation between potential cocaine manufacture and cocaine seized, amounting to R = 0.95 (R2=0.89) over the period 2005-2024.
Cocaine seizures rose in the Americas in 2024 compared to 2023, but declined in Europe, Asia, Oceania and Africa. For the 6th year in a row, reported cocaine seizures in Western and Central Europe exceeded those in North America, reversing the previous patterns. Certain countries in Africa and Asia were among those with the highest rate of growth in seizures worldwide during the period 2020–2024.
Although annual seizure quantities are subject to fluctuations, the smoothed long-term trend in cocaine seizures suggests an approximate annual growth rate of 14 per cent, as of 2024. Long-term seizure trends also show a growing share of cocaine seized in South America, rising from 40 per cent of the global total in 1998 to 64 per cent in 2024, as efforts have been intensified to seize cocaine before it leaves the region of origin.
