National Threat Assessment 2008. Organised Crime - Politie

although direct (large-scale) trade and distribution involving buyers in the
Netherlands and abroad also take place. Sometimes the grow shops also act as
pre-financiers. Anyone who wishes to start their own home nursery can start at
a grow shop. Not only equipment is available there 26 , but sometimes the entire
set-up is taken care of, in exchange for delivering the harvest in question to the
grow shop. This ensures that the grow shops are supplied and it also makes the
growers dependent. Coffee shops have largely lost their distributive function
and are left with their sales function.
Depending on the destination country, Nederweed intended for export is
transported by road, water, rail and sometimes by air. Weed transports are
quite often combined with hash, ecstasy and/or cocaine, and bartering is
involved: one product is delivered and exchanged for another.
Criminal investigations have shown that Nederweed is mainly intended for the
UK, but that it also goes to Belgium, Germany, Italy, Scandinavia and Spain.
Shipments are smuggled to the UK – where according to entrepreneurs in the
cannabis sector the market is huge – by means of specially prepared lorries that
arrive in the UK by ferry or through the Channel Tunnel. Transport companies’
current infrastructure or, for example, the network of the flower auction, are
used to smuggle the weed.
A new trend – fragmentation – can be seen as regards the foreign business
partners. In the past the Nederweed was smuggled to a central intermediary
in a foreign city, who distributed it to small dealers. Nowadays, more and more
shipments are smuggled directly to the small local dealers, which appears to
show that the distributive trade link has disappeared. This practice is evident
especially with regard to the trade with Germany, Belgium and France. Due to
its geographical location and the greater amount of logistics work involved as a
result, this phenomenon does not appear to play a role in the trade with the UK.
This could also explain the large cocktail shipments of drugs to the UK. In various
English cities traditional distributive traders still take care of local distribution
to the smaller dealers.
2.5.3 Scale
Nurseries
The figure below shows that the number of nurseries dismantled has risen
almost constantly since 1991.
26
Sometimes this even extends to the sale of seals and pliers to reseal the electricity meter after
the reading has been adjusted.
chapter 2 – Illegal markets
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