Global shipping companies are wrestling with apparent growing demand in a sector that they don’t want and that has law enforcement authorities around the world on high alert.
Ocean carriers saw a series of seizures of large shipments of drugs in the U.S. and Europe in 2019, and officials say they are a sign of the growing use of commercial ships for increasingly large loads of cocaine, heroin and other drugs. Officials say the growing scale of shipping operations, with the biggest container ships doubling in size over the past decade, have made them an attractive target for drug traffickers.