‘Diving for dope’: Identity in submarine drug policing at the ‘maritime gateway to Europe’
| Date | 01 January 2022 |
| Published date | 01 January 2022 |
| Author | Yarin Eski |
| DOI | 10.1177/1477370819887513 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1477370819887513
European Journal of Criminology
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/1477370819887513
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‘Diving for dope’: Identity in
submarine drug policing at the
‘maritime gateway to Europe’
Yarin Eski
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Abstract
This article offers an ethnographic account of everyday identity (re)configuration in submarine
policing by the Dutch Customs Diving Team (CDT) officers of illegal underwater drug trafficking
in the Port of Rotterdam (PoR). In so doing, it explores what it means to perform drug inspections
that depend on international collaboration and intelligence sharing, and also depend on the
cooperation of ships’ crews, enabling the CDT to deal with challenging submarine circumstances.
The findings emerge from a qualitative analysis, using an Othering framework, of data collected
during fieldwork in 2011 in the PoR. The main argument of this contribution is that to prevent
drug trafficking from entering in the port (and its European hinterland) and by legitimately
interrupting the trade flow, the CDT must become a justifiable intervention itself. However, given
the low number of drug seizures since the CDT’s inception, its legitimacy and efficacy are called
into question at a time of hypersecuritization on the one hand and austere policing on the other;
a bifurcating context in which CDT officers feel the need to (re)configure a superior policing
Self through an inferior policed Other for which (discriminating) stigmas that exist about drug
trafficking, maritime shipping and (counter-narcotics) policing are (unwillingly) used and amplified.
Keywords
Submarine policing, Port of Rotterdam, Customs Diving Team, drug trafficking, identity, port
security
Introduction
You have to deal with it . . . You can’t ehm . . . make it 100% [water]proof. It’s not possible . . .
You can never get something 100% secure. That’s an illusion. (Customs Diving Team officer 1)
Corresponding author:
Yarin Eski, Knowledge Hub Security and Social Resilience, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, De Boelelaan
1105, Amsterdam, Noord-Holland 1081 HV, Netherlands.
Email: y.eski@vu.nl
887513EUC0010.1177/1477370819887513European Journal of CriminologyEski
research-article2019
Article
2022, Vol. 19(1) 139–159
Recent years have seen a rather stable prevalence of drug trafficking globally, yet it
remains one of the most persistent and multifaceted types of illicit trafficking today,
increasingly leading to more, and sustained by, serious organized crime (UNODC, 2014).
The most recent official statistics indicate that the cocaine market is thriving globally,
with a 30 percent increase between 2013 and 2015. Cocaine consumption in Europe
increased by 30 percent during the period 2011–16, while seizures of cocaine increased
by 35 percent in Europe (UNODC, 2017: 16).
The maritime domain has ‘potentially the greatest impact on the total quantities of
drugs smuggled, as well as on trafficking flows and the availability of illicit drugs at the
global level’ (UNODC, 2015: 230). Functioning as transnational hubs where increas-
ingly licit flows of people, technologies and goods and the illicit flows of illegal traffick-
ing, corruption and terrorism intersect, ports are key sites for drug trafficking (Hall and
Antonopoulos, 2017; Zaitch, 2002). Interventions in maritime shipping rarely happen at
sea, and for this reason must take place in ports. To perform the interventions effectively,
a multi-agency of port police, security services and customs agencies work together dur-
ing their everyday inspections and (covert) operations (Eski, 2016). By having to be the
very disruption they ought to prevent from entering ports (Urciuoli et al., 2010), port
policing multi-agencies, in a way, could be considered a necessary evil to safeguard and
assist the global supply chain while protecting the wider society from substance abuse.
At the biggest European port, the Port of Rotterdam (PoR), interventions and seizures of
large quantities of drugs are made on a daily basis by the Rotterdam customs agency (Chalfin,
2007). Most of the inspections are done on deck, in cabins, amongst crew members and in
containers (Belastingdienst, 2017; Port of Rotterdam Authority, 2017a). There are, however,
also inspections done ‘under the water line’ by the Dutch Customs Diving Team (CDT),
which is a unique border policing phenomenon in Europe (De Heus, 2017). This article
explores the identity (re)configuration of the CDT that secures PoR against illegal submarine
drug trafficking in challenging circumstances while accommodating the global flow of licit
goods through an international transport hub. The context within which the CDT operates is
presented, followed by a detailed overview of the CDT and the fieldwork carried out amongst
the team. This is followed by the presentation and discussion of findings. Finally, the article
reflects on how, at a local (micro) level, an (occupational) identity – a superior policing Self
(Brons, 2015) – is (re)configured through a policed (inferior and risky) Other (Hudson, 2009;
Said, 1979); an identity (re)configuration that is embedded in the tension between, on the one
hand, keeping their port efficient and, on the other, keeping it safe from (criminal) disruptions
by becoming a (lawful) disruption themselves (Urciuoli et al., 2010). This tension between
balancing security with economic efficiency was intensified after 9/11 by the rise of maritime
and port logistics and securitization through the International Port Facility and Security
(ISPS) Code (Cowen, 2014). It has also been intensified by the age of austere policing (Levi
and Maguire, 2012), which had effects on PoR and drug control by the Rotterdam customs
agency on which the next section will focus.
The Port of Rotterdam, the ISPS Code and drug control
Listed as one of the world’s leading global maritime ports, PoR fulfils an important role
in international transport and is the major gateway to Europe. According to the latest
European Journal of Criminology 19(1)
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