While a decade ago most ketamine was trafficked across South and East and South-East Asia, such trafficking has diversified to other subregions including in Asia, Europe, the Americas and Africa.

• Ketamine seizures have increased over the last two decades and increased sharply between 2018 and 2022 before declining again somewhat in 2023 and 2024.
• Most of the ketamine seizures continue taking place primarily in East and South-East Asia (83 per cent of global ketamine seizures), followed by Europe (7 per cent) and the Americas (5 per cent) and Africa (3 per cent) over the 2020-2024 period. Over the last decade, however, there has been a clear shift from East Asia to South-East Asia.
• Most ketamine appears to be trafficked intra-regionally (except for Oceania and Africa) and – weighted by seizures – the main trafficking concentrations seem to be in Asia, followed by Europe and the Americas.
• There are indications that ketamine is licitly produced in India and then exported mainly to Germany where it is not controlled under the narcotics law but under the less strict Medicinal Products Act (Arzneimittelgesetz); the ketamine then enters into illegal channels and is smuggled across the country and to the neighboring Netherlands (Kingdom of the) for further distribution across Europe and beyond. For most regions outside of Asia the Kingdom of the Netherlands appears as the main country of departure of ketamine.