How much contraband can move through a gateway that sees millions of boxes a year, where only a sliver of those boxes are ever opened, and where a single corrupt insider can tip the odds from unlikely to inevitable. If you run a port, police one, or ship through one, that question is not academic, it is operational.
Containers are the bloodstream of the modern economy, and the West’s major ports, in the United States, Canada, and Europe, are its beating heart. But the inspection math is brutal. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, “less than 2% are inspected,” a figure echoed by European law enforcement assessments and industry analyses that put routine checks firmly in the low single digits. UNODCEuropolAJOT
This is a story about that math, about how networks exploit it, and about what it looks like on the ground in Los Angeles and New York, in Vancouver and Montreal, in Rotterdam and Antwerp, where high volume and low touch translate into persistent illicit throughput. Europol puts it plainly, “the percentage of containers inspected is low, approximately 2% overall,” and that gap between total volume and scrutiny is where the business model for smuggling flourishes.
The Inspections Problem, By The Numbers
UN trade statisticians count hundreds of millions of container moves annually, and they are moving faster and farther than ever as carriers reroute around chokepoints. In that flow, only a tiny portion is physically examined, even when you include X-ray or gamma imaging of conveyances.
The result, said DHS’s Inspector General in June 2025, is a system where CBP’s large-scale scanners “were inoperable” nearly half the time reviewed, and overall deployment lagged, undermining a critical detection layer. According to DHS OIG, “46 percent of installed large-scale NII systems were inoperable,” and only a third of new fixed systems purchased since 2020 had been installed at the time of the audit.
In the European Union the picture is similar. Europol reports roughly 2% of containers are inspected on average, with higher rates, about 10%, on specific South America-origin consignments, reflecting cocaine threat assessments. OECD work with EUIPO also notes that lifting inspection rates substantially is “virtually impossible” without collapsing port throughput, because a single ship could require “tens of thousands” of inspector hours if you tried to open every box. EuropolOECD
In the United States, CBP emphasizes layered, risk-based targeting and overseas prescreening under the Container Security Initiative, which now covers more than 80% of U.S.-bound maritime containerized cargo, but that is targeting and data vetting, not opening boxes. Trade and industry reporting has consistently pegged physical opens and scans of ocean containers in the low single digits. U.S. Customs and Border ProtectionAJOT
Case Study, United States
Los Angeles and Long Beach
The San Pedro Bay complex is the largest U.S. gateway, handling roughly a third of U.S. containerized imports in recent years. Volume is the point, and it is why a single compromised warehouse, trucking pool, or terminal clerk can move counterfeit or restricted goods with low interception risk.
In January 2025, federal prosecutors charged logistics executives, warehouse owners, and drivers with smuggling hundreds of millions of dollars of counterfeit and illicit goods from China through LA and Long Beach, a case that alleged conspiracies across the landside chain, not just the pier.
The hard drug numbers underscore the risk. The United States’ largest cocaine seizure happened not at a land crossing but at a container terminal, when authorities seized nearly 20 tons from the MSC Gayane in Philadelphia in 2019, a reminder that multi-ton consignments ride on legitimate ships and schedules.
Case Study, Canada
Vancouver
On Canada’s Pacific coast, Vancouver is a high-throughput, low-touch gateway. Canadian authorities publicly state that only a small share of marine containers is selected for examination after risk assessment, a model that mirrors the U.S. and EU. Local policing reviews warn that B.C. ports have been “corrupted by the infiltration of organized crime groups,” naming domestic biker gangs and transnational cartels, with corruption of insiders a recurring theme. According to Public Safety Canada, organized groups use “corrupted labourers” and logistical insiders to move contraband efficiently.
The seizures do come, including hundreds of kilos in single hits, but they are the statistical tip of a much larger flow. CBSA’s own enforcement bulletins and joint RCMP cases in 2024–2025 show repeated multi-hundred-kilogram cocaine seizures tied to marine and truck cargo moving through the Lower Mainland.
Case Study, Europe
Rotterdam
Europe’s largest port is also a primary narcotics entry point. Dutch Customs reported sharp rises in cocaine seizures in 2023, with authorities describing a “cat-and-mouse” fight inside the terminal stack. Even when annual tonnage seized dips, authorities caution that routing is adaptive, not defeated.
The Actors
Cartel alliances between Latin America’s producers and European wholesale distributors drive the market. According to UNODC’s Global Report on Cocaine, European wholesale distribution is dominated by entrenched criminal syndicates that tie into logistics and import networks across the North Sea range. Europol’s SOCTA assessments detail that drug trafficking remains the EU’s most profitable and violent criminal economy, fueling corruption and infiltration of legitimate businesses, including port services.
In North America, Canadian public-safety reporting and municipal reviews call out domestic biker gangs, Asian, South Asian, and Russian-speaking networks, and partnerships with Mexican cartels, with Vancouver singled out for sustained insider compromise risks. U.S. cases at LA, Long Beach, New York, Philadelphia, and Port Hueneme show both counterfeit supply chains and drug loads riding in produce and mixed consignments.
The Tactics
According to Europol, criminals exploit a small set of repeatable methods at industrial scale. Two matter most.
“Rip-on, rip-off,” criminals add illicit cargo to a legitimate container at origin, then extract it rapidly on arrival using insider access or covert teams, leaving the box to continue to the rightful consignee. Europol also documents theft or misuse of container reference codes and pickup credentials, allowing clean removal before any anomaly is noticed. Europol
Insider enablement, the key meta-tactic. The World Customs Organization reported in July 2025 that “over two-thirds” of detected drug shipments involved someone employed within the supply chain. That can be a yard hustler with line-of-sight on a specific row, a gate clerk with the ability to issue a pass, or a trucker who can stage a box for covert access, each node multiplying the effect of low inspection rates. World Customs Organization
What Fails
Under-utilized or inoperative scanners, and gaps in maintenance. DHS’s 2025 audit is explicit on utilization and uptime shortfalls, which directly reduce the fraction of cargo ever imaged.
Assuming volume equals safety. OECD and Europol are clear that trying to “inspect everything” would gridlock ports, yet the current equilibrium leaves inspection rates around 1–2% in many contexts. Without aggressive insider-threat programs, stronger chain-of-custody on release codes, and improved parcelization analytics, networks will continue to arbitrage the low-touch baseline.
Implications
The inspection math is not merely a customs issue, it is a public-health and violence issue. The EU Drugs Agency notes record EU cocaine seizures concentrated at Antwerp and Rotterdam, reflecting a market at scale, and UNODC reports global cocaine supply at record highs, with new hubs and diversified routes responding to enforcement pressure in classic balloon fashion. The consequence is a Europewide increase in drug-market violence and corruption, with similar risks for North American port cities.
For operators and policymakers the to-do list is unglamorous and continuous: raise NII uptime and utilization, harden pickup and gate credentials, embed vetted insider-threat programs with labor partners, and sustain intelligence sharing between customs, port police, and terminal operators. The networks will adapt, but inspection math bends in your favor when layers stack and insiders face sustained friction.
Conclusion
Ports exist to move, not to pause. That bias toward motion is why inspection rates will remain small, and why the decisive terrain is targeting quality and insider control, not a fantasy of opening every box. The West’s major gateways are efficient by design, which means the adversary’s business model works until you make it expensive, uncertain, and slow for them, without breaking the flow for everyone else. The data are unambiguous, only a tiny share of containers are checked, and that is precisely why drug syndicates, counterfeiters, and corrupt brokers keep using the same doors. According to Europol, “the percentage of containers inspected is low,” and according to the WCO, insiders enable most detected drug runs. The fix is not to stop the port, it is to out-target, out-instrument, and out-harden it.
Great post. The Philly case in particular shows how much illegal cargo, may pad legal bottom lines.
But unfortunately, the trade disruption required for even a 25% physical verification or open Bay exam, would cripple the US supply chains. The easy answer, doesn't come with an easy price.