Navigating Seizures: Sea-related Drug Seizures as Recorded by the UNODC

Under the International Drug Conventions, United Nations member states are required to report drug control data to the Secretary-General. Drug seizures are conducted at national and regional levels and subsequently reported to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which serves as the source of this dataset.

This visualization includes only drug seizures that occurred in seaports, riverport stations, harbors, or territorial waters from 2011 to 2023. Additionally, it incorporates seizures where the reported mode of transportation was a boat or vessel. However, it is important to note that not all records specify the exact location of the seizure. In cases where the city of seizure is unknown, the event has been geographically assigned to the center of the respective country for visualization purposes.

At any point, zoom in to explore seizure locations and inferred routes.

While this dataset provides insight into seizure patterns and enforcement activity, it does not measure the full scale of drug trafficking itself. The UNODC uses these seizure reports to infer suspected drug trafficking routes and estimated volumes, but these should be understood as direct measurements of trafficking activity.

Note: Thicker lines indicate more voluminous routes.

Source: UNODC (2024), UNODC Research - Data Portal – Drug Trafficking & Cultivation. https://dataunodc.un.org/dp-drug-seizures (Accessed on [02/02/2025]).