BERLIN, Sept. 8 (Xinhua) -- With almost 360,000 drug-related offences, the number of drug crimes in Germany rose by about 2.6 percent in 2019 compared with the previous year, according to the Federal Criminal Police Office on Tuesday.
For nine years, the number of drug offences registered by German police had been rising continuously, which was mainly due to an increase in general violations of the narcotics law, according to the Office.
"The international and national drug trade must be further reduced in the future. Drug-related crime is not a trivial matter, but creates immeasurable suffering, brutal violence and is the basis for many other organized crime offences," said Daniela Ludwig, the German government's Drug Commissioner.
Last year, the "biggest increase by far" was registered for offences related to cocaine, which rose by 12.2 percent over the previous year to just over 20,000 cases.
Import smuggling of cocaine into Germany by sea "continued to be lucrative," as several seizures of large quantities of cocaine in the past year had shown, according to the Office.
In mid-July of last year, customs in the northern port of Hamburg inspected a freight container from South America and seized a total of 4.5 tons of cocaine, the largest single quantity of cocaine ever seized in Germany.
The trade of narcotics over the internet had established itself worldwide as a "permanent distribution channel," the Office noted. The anonymity on the internet attracted many consumers, but also new dealer structures.
In June last year, the Office shut down Germany's largest online marketplace for illegal drugs, which was known as "Chemical Revolution." Enditem
