SOCIAL TIES BETWEEN CRIMINAL NETWORKS IN COCAINE TRAFFICKING IN EUROPE

This paper is highlighting the main criminal networks that are trafficking cocaine in Europe, through the lenses of social embeddedness and criminal network theories. We will try to show that social ties between European and Latin American organized crime networks, as well as between different European crime networks, are the main reason for the staggering success of European criminal groups in cocaine trafficking in the 21st century. In the beginning, we lay out the social embeddedness theory and criminal network theory, and then we review the main criminal networks involved in cocaine trafficking in Europe and social ties between them, with special attention to Serbian and Montenegrin criminal networks. At the end of the article, we analyze what role does ethnicity, seen as social ties based on common language and tradition, play in cocaine trafficking in Europe.


INTRODUCTION
The production of cocaine is specific for three Latin American countries -Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia, 1 while the United States has traditionally been the biggest cocaine market, due to proximity to producer countries. 2 However, cocaine trafficking has become a rising problem for most European countries since the beginning of the 21 st century. An alarming trend was observed in the period 1998-2009, when cocaine consumption in Europe doubled from 63 to 124 tonnes, while in the US it has fallen from 267 to 157 tonnes during the same period. 3 Besides, the highest level of purity of cocaine available in Europe is observed in 2016, alongside low prices. 4 This trend continued into 2018 when there was the highest amount of seized cocaine ever recorded -amounting to 181 tonnes, with an increased level of cocaine purity and stable prices since 2008. 5 This alarming data regarding the fast spread of cocaine trafficking in Europe, makes us wonder what is the main reason for this. Since it is not proximity as in the case of the United States, and since the route from Latin America to Europe is long and full of impediments for drug traffickers, we should look for the answer elsewhere. The author finds that data suggest that connections between European and Latin American criminal networks could be the reason for the spread of the cocaine market in Europe. For example, data show that a great amount of cocaine is imported in Europe through countries in Western Balkans and Southeast Europe, mainly through ports located on Adriatic and the Black Sea. 6 What is indicative is that this expansion followed the market liberalization in this region after the fall of the Berlin Wall, which led to the strengthening of connections between criminal networks from the Balkans and cartels from Latin America. 7 Although in the period 2011-2014 seized amount of cocaine in eastern Europe made only 2% of the total amount of seized cocaine in Europe, research indicates that we can now talk about the Balkan route for cocaine and 'Balkan cartel' as one of the main criminal networks. 8 This is one of the most alarming trends in Balkan countries since the 1990s, and it deserves much more attention from academics and security officers not only in the Western Balkans but also in all European countries.
In light of these concerning indications and statistics regarding cocaine trafficking and consumption in Europe, the author thinks that research and law enforcement communities would highly benefit from more academic research about the European cocaine market, especially connections between European and Latin American cocaine trafficking networks. However, there is not enough body of work about subjects of cocaine trafficking in Europe and their social ties, which could be the main reason for the rise of 'Balkan cartel' . The lack of empirical results on this topic is not surprising, since research about criminal networks is very hard to conduct and its empirical scope is very limited, let alone the research about the social connections between different criminal networks, which makes our subject even more complicated.
On the other hand, we feel that further research on this topic is necessary to understand how cocaine networks operate. Therefore, in this paper, we will analyze the subjects of cocaine trafficking in Europe by pointing out the social ties between main criminal networks that are involved in cocaine trafficking. We will try to offer some answers that will hopefully help us understand this problem a little bit more, by taking all research limitations and impediments into consideration. Since cocaine trafficking is comprised of various crime groups from Latin America and Europe, the purpose of this paper is to highlight social ties between these different crime groups, which plausibly are the main reason for the expansion of the European cocaine market. Our methodology is based on document analysis, which is very helpful in regards to gaining relevant scope of statistical and qualitative data through a considerable number of institutional and research documents. On the other hand, we have to point out the limitation of this methodology when it comes to the possibility of gaining empirical reliable data since the empirical research in the field of organized crime is scarce. However, despite all those limitations, we hope that this paper will contribute to understanding how connections between criminal networks impact the rise of cocaine trafficking in Europe and that it will help us analyze the latest trends in the cocaine market in Europe. This paper will hopefully be of contribution not only to academics but also to the security and law enforcement community, in their efforts to understand and fight the illicit activity of cocaine traffickers.
Our theoretical frame will be social embeddedness and criminal network theories. Social embeddedness theory in criminology is presuming that social ties between members of criminal networks play a crucial role in organized crime. 9 For example, a large number of migrants that came from Colombia to Europe in the 1990s formed a strong social connection between Colombian and European criminal groups that resulted in the rise of cocaine trafficking. Similarly, criminal network theory views subjects of organized crime as networks that are made of many interdependent 'nodes' which are connected by various relations and social ties. 10 It will help us show how the European cocaine market is made of many criminal groups related to one another in international criminal networks.
At the beginning of the paper we shortly lay out the social embeddedness theory and criminal network theory, and then review social ties between European criminal groups, with a special reflection on Serbian and Montenegrin groups. At the end of the paper, we reflect on the role of ethnicity in cocaine trafficking in Europe, with no intention to justify 'alien conspiracy' theories, but merely to observe ethnic ties as social and kinship ties which are grouped around the same language, tradition, and origin.

SOCIAL EMBEDDEDNESS OF CRIMINAL NETWORKS
Social embeddedness theory is based on assumption that economic processes are based on social ties between economic actors. As organized crime is an illicit economic activity whose goal is profit, and also assumes strong social ties between actors because of the illegal and conspirative nature of the crime, this theory is useful for our analysis. Granovetter 11 thinks that social embeddedness accentuates the 9 E.R. Kleemans  role of personal relationships and the structure of those relations in building trust. Trust, which is the key to doing business, is based more on strength of personal relationships, than on an individual's reputation in society. 12 The importance of personal and ethnic ties are researched by authors like Albini, 13 Ianni and Reuss-Ianni 14 and Kleemans and van de Bunt, 15 while Kleemans 16 popularized social embeddedness in the field of criminology. Kleemans and van de Bunt 17 have analyzed how social embeddedness plays a vital role in international drug networks. They found that criminal networks operate in a very hostile environment, in some kind of a 'jungle' , where there are no legal structures in which they can perform their transactions, like a bank for money transfers or the judiciary system for settling disputes. 18 This absence of legal institutions, which would offer some degree of certainty in their social activities, constrain criminal networks to operate in an uncertain world. Criminals who are involved in illegal drug trafficking are facing many impediments in their efforts to efficiently distribute drugs from start to end. There are questions like how can suppliers guarantee that drugs will arrive safely to its destination, how can they be sure they will get money in exchange for drugs, and what to do in case of seizure from law enforcement or rival criminal groups. 19 All these uncertainties are what differentiate illegal from legal activities and reasons why there is a crucial need for strong bonds and trust between members of criminal networks. However, it is not only 'strong' ties, but also 'weak' ties that are important in criminal networks. Strong ties are based on kinship and family ties, while weak ties are made deliberately with the people we meet in our daily activities. 20 Also, it is observed that social connections are mostly predetermined by social and geographical closeness, therefore people who perform their daily activities in the same geographical area and the same social circle are most probably to make social relations. 21 If we look at international drug networks, the situation is much more complex than in the case of local criminal gangs. That is mostly because of geographical and social distance between different criminal groups from different countries. Kleemans calls these barriers 'structure holes' that need to be bridged so that international criminal networks could operate efficiently. 22 Therefore, criminal networks that manage to connect with criminal groups from different countries and bridge these 'structural holes' , become one of the most important international distributors of drugs. Therefore, we think that especially in the case of international drug trafficking, strong and weak ties play a very important, if not crucial role.
Trust between criminals is a crucial element of cocaine trafficking because the price of cocaine grows drastically as it travels to its destination countries in Europe. For the amount of coca leaves necessary to produce 1 kilo of cocaine, a farmer on the coca field in Latin America receives around 250 euros, while the wholesale price for that same kilo of cocaine in transit is between 12.000 and 15.000 euros. 23 Furthermore, at the end of the cocaine route, for example on the streets of Madrid, 1 kilo of pure cocaine costs around 80.000 euros. 24 Due to enormous financial benefits from international cocaine trafficking, it is even more important for crime networks to make sure that the drug is safely transported to its destination. Social ties are thought to be important in creating trust between members of criminal groups, which is necessary for illicit business as every member of the group depends on the other. These ties make cooperation between network members easier since they already know each other, but they also know that they will meet in the future. 25 As Kleemans explains it, they didn't only invest in their connection in the past, the so-called 'shadow of the past' , but they are aware that their relationship in the present will bond them in the future, which he refers to as 'shadow of the future' . 26 Kleemans and Van de Bunt 27 found out that the most common occupational characteristic between Dutch criminals is the mobility of their job post, so a large number of offenders had a job in transport and logistics -taxi driver, car dealer, director of a transport company, warehouse employee, etc. 28 Also, most of the offenders could operate independently in their job post, and their occupations were 'social' -bar and disco owners, bodyguards, gold dealers, etc. 29 These findings indicate that there is a correlation between social contacts and crime. Jobs in the areas of transport and logistics provide the opportunity for international contact with different countries and different people, which plausibly makes a good foundation for transit crime. That is also true in the case of independent workers and workers in 'social' job posts since those occupations provide more opportunity to travel, socialize and meet a lot of different people, with whom they may connect into the criminal network. 30 23 D. Brombacher A study by Von Lampe and Ole Johansen 31 also showed that social ties and trust are very important parts of organized crime. Since drug traffickers are faced with the risks of prosecution, arrests, drug seizures, and gang violence, the secrecy of their operations is a must, which highlights the necessity of deep mutual trust between members of a criminal network. Paoli also points out that in any European country with a relatively efficient state apparatus, criminals must work against the state, with a constant risk of detention and confiscation. 32 Therefore, these groups and networks are created between individuals and groups with strong bonds, based either on long term friendships or kinship.
As organized crime is embedded in society, besides relational embeddedness (which is based on social relations), we can also talk about structural embeddedness, which refers to the structural context in which these relations are happening. 33 Structural embeddedness of cocaine trafficking on macro-level would pertain to trafficking routes, like airports and traditional air flights between different locations, or firms and companies that are used as fronts for illicit business or money laundering. Existing traditional, historical, and lingual connections between countries, for example between Netherlands Antilles and the Netherlands, or between Spain and Colombia, are fertile ground for both relational and structural embeddedness.
Besides social embeddedness theory, our analytical framework includes also a criminal network theory. We find that in the globalized world today when discussing international drug trafficking, we can see that criminal groups are organized in flexible and decentralized networks, rather than strict hierarchies. We can define a network as a series of 'nodes' that are connected, whether it be individuals, organizations, or groups. 34 On the micro-level, we can observe members of local criminal networks as nodes that are connected by various types of ties.
These ties can be based on ethnicity, kinship, friendship, or the same economic and transactional interests. In the case of international drug trafficking, we can look at different criminal networks as nodes that are connected to larger international drug networks. Since this paper analyzes how social ties between different cocaine networks are related to their rise and expansion, criminal network theory is a very useful framework for highlighting especially those ties and connections. These ties are not based on ethnicity and kinship, but rather on strategic reasons and long-term goals, which became an important element of organized crime during the 1990s. 35 Every crime group or individual involved in cocaine trafficking in Europe is a part (or a 'node') that has its function in the criminal network and it is connected to other nodes by different kinds of relationships. These relationships are built on trust, which is necessary because of the international and illicit nature of cocaine trafficking. The drug trafficking chain to Europe is very long since it stretches across the Atlantic, and it is impeded by a vast number of obstacles, like border controls, police investigations, and geographical distances, so only one group can't be active along the whole drug trafficking chain. That is why cooperation between various crime groups is needed for shipments to arrive safely from drug producers in Latin America to its destinations in Europe, and exactly by this cooperation is how the drug chain is created.
In the 1990s Dutch law enforcement and academic researchers recognized that most drug groups are organized as networks, rather than strict hierarchies, which was a common outlook on organized crime groups until then. 36 They noticed that organized crime is operating like entrepreneurship, where many flexible and fluid criminal groups were working together in various types of logistical arrangements. 37 When law enforcement and police officers realized that there is no 'mastermind' behind organized crime groups, they became concentrated to target criminal 'facilitators' , who were bridging the gap between illegal activities and their legal partners. 38 That way, the critical link that tied different parts of the criminal network would have been removed, which would practically stop the bloodstream of the whole network.
However, Lemieux 39 finds that network is not well defined when it comes to a criminal organization, since a criminal network is not just a system of nodes and ties between them, but also has some other important traits. He thinks that there is a direct or indirect connection between pairs of actors in a network and that the main purpose of a network is internal pooling. 40 Pooling is important for network operations because criminal activities depend on the efficient sharing of information and other resources. 41 Furthermore, what is important for pooling the resources inside one network and between multiple different networks, is the nature of the relationship which characterizes social ties. 42 Even though the nature of social ties is very difficult to observe and research, we should make continuous attempts to analyze it, because it could provide valuable data about the organization and operation of criminal networks. Besides the nature or the quality of the connection, some other traits characterize the 'strength' of social ties, like the recency of contact, frequency of contact, and duration of the contact between two individuals. 43 Powell 44 researched network forms of organization and pointed out that hierarchies are not the end evolutionary stage of economic development, but that modern commerce is organized like family businesses, guilds, and cartels, in which there are no strict hierarchies and the boundaries are loose. 45 In hierarchical structures, there are clear boundaries between departments, clear divisions of authority, detailed mechanisms of making reports, and formal operating and decision-making procedures. On the other hand, the main traits of networks are interdependency between network members upon resources than the other members have, individuals don't operate independently and they are identified in relations to others, and relations between members are difficult to create and maintain, so the flexibility of members is very important. 46 Morselli 47 researched organized crime from the theoretical perspective of criminal networks while highlighting the crucial role of social embeddedness in criminal activities. He thinks that how 'network of contacts embeds individual actions has much to do in orienting the twists and turns that a given criminal career may take' . 48 Morselli also wrote about the important role of brokers in a network, who are highly efficient and low-constrained entrepreneurs. Brokers have a very good position in a social network, which allows them to receive recent and better information and information-based opportunities. Consequently, the broker can decide who will receive the information that is in his possession, which makes his position in the network even more valuable. 49 Research has proved that the key players in a network don't have authoritative roles, but the brokerage roles, which bring flexibility, integration, and creativity to the network organization and activities. 50 Besides these traits, brokers play a major role in the pooling of resources and coordination in criminal networks, so the presence of multiple brokers in a criminal network is likely to indicate its greater sophistication and organization. 51 In the case of international drug trafficking, brokers are thought to play a crucial role in connecting different criminal groups, networks, and individuals, thus creating new opportunities for criminal endeavors of those networks and individuals.
Kleemans refers to people who create these connections between different groups as 'bridges' who fill the 'structural hole' made by numerous barriers to the international drug trade. 52 Williams calls these mediators 'extenders' whose 'role is to extend the network by recruiting new members, by negotiating with other networks regarding collaboration, and by encouraging defectors from the world of business, government, and law enforcement' . 53 Granovetter, who studied the strength of weak ties, finds that these weak ties are crucial for connecting different social groups. 54 For example, Serb Dejan Stojanović Keka is thought to be a 'bridge' between the Montenegrin Kotor clan (before it split to Kavač and Škaljari clan) and Latin American cocaine producers, which enabled this clan to become one of the most powerful cocaine traffickers in Europe. 55

EUROPEAN CRIMINAL NETWORKS
Cocaine trafficking in Europe in the past was mainly organized by groups from Latin America, but that is changing since these crime gangs are now fragmented and selling licenses for cocaine trade to European crime groups. 56 These changes are speeding up after the demobilization of the main Colombian cocaine trafficker network -Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), which started peace talks with the Colombian government in 2012. 57 This enabled European criminal networks to take part in the trafficking of large amounts of cocaine from Latin America, thanks to their social ties to Colombian crime groups, as well as with various groups originating from Europe, with whom they form a criminal network. For example, the author finds that Serbian 'drug lord' Darko Šarić and his criminal organization became serious cocaine traffickers possibly because of his connections to Colombian cocaine producers, but also with Italian criminal organizations.
Besides Šarić, groups from the United Kingdom, Spain, Netherlands, and Italy became important brokers in the European cocaine trade, mostly since they cooperate directly with cocaine producers in Latin America. 58 They are also connected, creating in that way European criminal networks. Since these bridges and cooperation between different criminal groups appear to be crucial for the rise of European criminal networks, we will now look at how different criminal groups are tied and connected.
When it comes to British criminal networks, security services discovered complex groups that are tied by strong kinship or ethnic ties, and are importing large amounts of cocaine. Pearson and Hobbs 59 noticed that the core of those networks makes only 4 to 5 people. The import of cocaine is coming from Colombia, while the middle-level market is made of flexible and complex groups that are based on long-term social and family ties. London is the largest drug market, after which comes Liverpool as second, since now cocaine in Liverpool costs only 35 pounds per gram, while before 2000 this market didn't even exist. 60 Arguably one of the main reasons for this dramatic rise of the cocaine market in the UK is strong ethnic and social ties between a large number of immigrants that came from Colombia and Albania in the 1990s and members of British gangs. Since Colombia is the main cocaine producer and the Albanian mafia plays a significant role in the drug market in the UK, social relations and friendships between immigrants and British gangs possibly enabled British criminals to make connections directly to people who produce and smuggle cocaine in Europe. The result of that is the drug market with a large amount of high-quality cocaine and much lower prices. An example of those connections is British man Andrew Deamer, who moved to Colombia and 'ran 345 million pounds cocaine ring in the Colombian town of Rionegro near Medellin' . 61 Spanish criminal networks are also very active in the cocaine market in Europe, which is not surprising when we have in mind that through Spain goes the most prominent cocaine route -the Southwestern route. 62 Expansion of the Spanish cocaine trade began in the 1980s, when groups from Galicia from Northwest Spain, shifted their operations from smuggling cigarettes to cocaine trafficking. 63 Organized crime groups from Galicia had legal businesses in fishing, which they used as a front for their illicit activities when they later got involved in cocaine trafficking with Colombian crime groups. 64 Even today, when there is a trend of redirecting cocaine shipments to the south of Spain through places like Algeciras, there is still a strong connection between crime groups from Galicia and Colombia. The contact is often made in prison, where people who have fishing boats, cars, and men, offer their services to the supplier, and this contact is made again when they come out of prison. 65 An example is a Galician man named Jorge Gomez Calvino, who by his activities in Colombia led to the arrest of 15 people in operation Poseidon, which cut the cocaine trafficking chain that started in Colombia and went through Spain into Europe. 66 Dutch criminal networks operate along the second most prominent cocaine route in Europe -The northwestern route, which goes through the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. 67 The Netherlands is suitable for cocaine transit because of its busy harbors through which passes a large number of unchecked containers. 68 Therefore, as an investigative journalist Roberto Saviano says 'whoever controls the Netherlands has one of the arteries of the global drug market' . 69 That is why Van de Bunt, Kleemans, Bokhorst, et.al. 70 see a crime in the Netherlands primarily as transit crime. Organizational forms of Dutch criminal networks are flexible and there are no strict hierarchical structures. 71 There are frequent contacts between Dutch criminal groups and countries that are historically and lingually connected to the Netherlands, like the Netherlands Antilles and Suriname, which opened the door for the entry of cocaine from South America. The importance of these connections is seen by Kleemans and Van de Bunt, who made a point that people who migrated to the Netherlands in the 1960s and 1970s coincidentally came from countries that later became drug producers or transit countries. 72 These migrations formed a network of connections between countries in South and Central America and the Netherlands, which is a plausible reason why Dutch crime groups grew their illicit activities into an international network. There is also a problem of 'Mocro mafia' or criminal networks in which members originate from Morocco, who are mostly stationed in Amsterdam and Utrecht and who are shipping cocaine from Colombia to Spain and Portugal. 73 One of the most important criminal networks which operate in the Netherlands, among a great number of others, is Italian 'Ndrangheta, which members use Italian immigrants to smuggle drugs for them. 74 The origin of its name is in the Greek language, and means 'behaving like a real man' . 75 'Ndrangheta represents a coalition of hundreds of 'families' or mafia-like groups, with up to 5.000 members 76 and draws around 62% of its profits from the drug trade, mainly cocaine trafficking. 77 This network is responsible for a staggering 80% of the European drug trade, with a profit of around 60 billion dollars per year.
The key for 'Ndrangheta's success in illicit business is that after World War II it has kept relations with immigrants who migrated to Germany, USA, Australia, Belgium, Colombia, and France, and then used those family ties to spread its criminal network to all over the world. 78 Police operations Columbus I and II discovered a trafficking network for cocaine import in Europe that stretched through Costa Rica, New York, and Calabria. The importance of brokers in Mexico, Bolivia, and Peru has also been noticed, while the core of the network is organized as a family business. 79 Thanks to its long tentacles, 'Ndrangheta became a big cocaine distributer from South America to Europe back in the 1990s, 80 but continues to play a great role in the cocaine market.
Besides 'Ndrangheta, there are three other Italian organized crime groups (Camorra, Cosa Nostra, and Sacra Corona Unita), among which Camorra is most active in the European cocaine market. Italian Mafia had a strong presence in the European drug market even back in the 1980s when some members of the Roman gang Banda della Magliana got caught in the Netherlands for smuggling cocaine from Colombia to Italy. 81 Camorra is very active in Europe as a cocaine drug importer and distributor. There is an example of one member of Camorra who got caught with 23 kg of cocaine, and who was part of the distribution chain from Colombia, through Venezuela to the Netherlands and Belgium. 82 In June 2020 also 23 members of Camorra were arrested for drug dealing, and they were believed to have bought cocaine through brokers from 'Ndrangheta. 83 Camorra is also believed to have imported an incredible shipment of 14 tons of ISIS made amphetamines named Captagon to the port of Salerno 84 , which points to the dangerous and growing connection between organized crime and terrorism. This Italian crime organization also has a strong presence in Spain because members of Camorra view Spain as a country with traditionally low risk of detection, 85 but also since Camorra first emerged in Spain, and it later spread to Italy when the dynasty of Bourbon was in power. 86 Therefore, family and traditional ties that bind members of criminal groups between these two countries most probably made the foundation upon which international criminal network appeared. One recent example was two Camorra members that were trafficking cocaine to Spain but had maintained strong ties with Italy. 87

SERBIAN AND MONTENEGRIN CRIMINAL NETWORKS
Serbian and Montenegrin criminal networks emerged as major actors in the cocaine trade in Europe since the beginning of this century, due to their direct connections with Colombian crime groups. That is why recently we can talk about the Balkan cocaine route, which is forming alongside the traditional heroin route. These networks also managed to impose their strong presence in Italy, where they have become main cocaine traders beside Italian criminal networks. 88 Thanks to their connections to Latin American cocaine producers, Serbian and Montenegrin groups import huge amounts of drugs in Italy, approximately 3 tons a month, 89 and also distribute it to other European countries. Serbian criminal networks are successful in the drug trade probably because of their paramilitary structure and their experience in tobacco and arms smuggling in Yugoslav wars, during which they accumulated first capital and began to cooperate with Italian criminal gangs. 90 Cocaine is usually imported in Balkans through ports in Thessaloniki, Varna, and Burgas, 91 but also through the coast of Romania. Romanian police seized over 1 ton of cocaine on its coast in 2019 and arrested two men from Serbia who imported the drugs from South America. The seized drug was high-quality cocaine of 90% purity, with a market worth around 300 million euros. 92 This historic seizure is a good indicator of the fast spread of cocaine trafficking networks through the Balkans, which was never seen before.
In 2009 in a joint police operation of Serbian Security Information Agency, American Drug Enforcement Agency, and Uruguay's police, named symbolically 'Balkan warrior' , near Montevideo was seized 3 tons of cocaine. The drug was trafficked by a criminal network which was led by Darko Šarić. Before his surrender, Šarić was the leader of a powerful Balkan criminal organization that imported huge amounts of cocaine into Europe between 2006 and 2009 from Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina. Because of his social relations to Italian crime organizations, Šarić became the main cocaine importer to the Italian market after 'Ndrangheta. 93 On the other side of the Atlantic, he cooperated with Colombian crime group Rastrojos, which are known for their collaboration with European criminal groups. 94 After Šarić surrendered in 2014, the gap in the cocaine market was filled by the Kotor clan, a crime group from town Kotor in Montenegro, which then split into two clans -Škaljari and Kavači clan. Kotor clan was connected to Šarić through Miroljub Miša Radulović and Dragan Dudić Fric. 95 This group also had social ties to Latin American main cocaine trafficker FARC through 'middle man' who originated from Balkans and lived in South America, who was suspected to be Dejan Stojanović Keka. 96 The author finds that the man who had the role of 'middle man' between the Kotor clan and FARC was the crucial link that bonded these two criminal groups into an international cocaine network. The plausible reason why the middle man is so important is that the drug route across the Atlantic is filled with barriers like geographical distance and social and lingual differences between the producer and consumer countries. 97 Therefore, these barriers need to be bridged by a man who earned great trust inside the criminal network, and who creates a link between the 'nodes' in the network. As Coles points out, these 'brokers' are very important in creating communication links between groups in an international criminal network. 98 Since the broker's social relations are very important for criminal network operations, usually when some crime group members are arrested, his connections are redirected to different 'nodes' in the network. We can see this after the arrest of Šarić -when he was out of the picture, his social relations were maintained by members of the Kotor clan, who used those connections to climb the ladder in the cocaine market. This is supportive of criminal networks theory and indicates that networks are much difficult to break because of their flexible and decentralized structure.
Since these networks are made of a high number of individuals and groups which are interdependent and connected by social relations, there is no one 'drug lord' who controls the whole network. This indicates the inefficiency of 'Mr. Big' strategy, which implies that by the arrest of the mastermind of the organization, the whole organization would be dismantled. 99 The author finds that the error of this approach is the false premise that the criminal organization is a hierarchical structure with the boss on its top. Even if the criminal network is centralized by a certain degree, by drug seizures and police activities it becomes more decentralized, while at the same time drug trade doesn't decrease. 100 95 D. Telesković

IMMIGRANT CRIMINAL NETWORKS
Ethnicity is widely studied as an indicator of organized crime by authors like Bovenkerk and Siegel, 101 Bovenkerk, Siegel, and Zaitch, 102 Tonry, 103 Kahanec and Zimmerman 104 and Ignjatović. 105 Ignjatović says that it is observed both in the US and in Europe, that ethnic minorities are often involved in crimes regarding drug trafficking because of their desire to climb the social ladder in the societies they live in. 106 The reasons for their involvement in drug trafficking are large immigrant diaspora in consumer countries, strong family and local ties, and access to drugs and trafficking routes, among others. 107 It seems that ethnic background does play a role in drug trafficking, since ethnic minorities usually have low social and economic status in countries they migrated to and where they are not well integrated. 108 However, if we look at ethnic ties as grouped social ties that are based on a common language, tradition, and geographic origin, we can expand the theoretical usefulness of ethnic theories and avoid 'alien conspiracy' theories. Therefore, we presume that strong social and family ties between close people are the primary source of ethnic connectivity and not the other way around.
Paoli and Reuter found that three ethnic groups that are involved in the heroin and cocaine trade in Europe have large diaspora in at least one European country. 109 There are 5 million Turks in Europe that are connected to their homeland which possibly allows them to smuggle large amounts of heroin and be unnoticed. 110 Around 1.4 million Albanians are living abroad across Europe, which is about onefourth of the Albanian population, as well as half of million Colombians, who immigrated mostly to Spain in the 1990s, where they are involved in importing cocaine from their homeland. 111 Albanian criminal networks manage almost 5 billion pounds worth of cocaine market in the UK. 112 Albanians started working directly with the Colombian pro-ducers and managed to buy 1 kg of cocaine for 4.000-5.000 pounds, while other gangs were buying it for 22.500 pounds from Dutch networks. This resulted in the highest quality of the drugs since the 1990s and lowest prices in the last 10 years. 113 Albanians cooperate with 'Ndrangheta which gave them access to ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp. 114 They are also active in Western European countries, like Germany, where police arrested an Albanian who smuggled 613 kg of cocaine from Colombia to Albania. 115 Albanian criminal networks are based on strict rules and they are comprised of cells with 4-10 people from the same village or family since Albanian clans are based on blood ties. 116 In the UK, Belgium, Italy, and Switzerland members of Albanian networks are embedded in those societies through marriages with local women, they refuse to live in ghettos, they push to get legal documents and citizenships of European countries, they cooperate with local crime gangs and they are buying small private businesses like bars. 117 In the case of Albanian crime, we can see how relational and structural embeddedness enables a criminal network to become almost invisible by blending in with the rest of society.
It is observed that some members of the Nigerian community in Europe are also prominent cocaine importers and distributors in Europe and that they are stationed mainly in Amsterdam where they usually work as couriers on air flights from Netherlands Antilles and Surinam. 118 Since board control had been tightened, they shifted to different routes like the Dominican Republic, Peru, and Mexico. Some crime groups from Western Africa (Nigeria, Ghana) import cocaine to the UK, because of numerous immigrants from that region. It is thought that Nigerians are the most common cocaine traffickers in France (in 2006 they made one-third of all arrested foreigners who were charged for cocaine trafficking). 119 Ignjatović explains this by Nigerians' entrepreneurship skills, moral disorientation due to their government's corruption during a long period, and week civil society. 120 Besides these factors, large diaspora and their social and family connections are the most probably the crucial reason for their drug trade activities in Europe. 121 Colombians mostly migrated to Spain and the United Kingdom, especially from the 1980s and 1990s, when Colombian diaspora in these countries quickly grew in size. 122 In the period 2004-2007, between 21% and 26% of all foreigners arrested for cocaine smuggling in Spain were Colombians. 123 This data shouldn't surprise us since Colombians traditionally cooperate with Galician crime groups, with whom they import drugs, so they are mostly involved in large drug trades. 124 However, they are also active in the Italian cocaine market, where they mostly cooperate with 'Ndrangheta and arrange big cocaine shipments hidden in containers. 125 There is a big community of Colombians originating from Cali and Medellin in the Netherlands, so in the 1990s the number of Colombian prisoners was 20 times bigger than the number of Dutch prisoners. 126 This big Colombian community throughout Europe is arguably one of the crucial reasons for the cocaine market expanding since it enabled European crime networks to make direct connections to crime groups that produce and distribute cocaine in Latin America.

CONCLUSION
In this paper, we tried to show how social ties between European and Latin American criminal networks, but also between different criminal networks in Europe, are one of the main reasons for the rise of European criminal groups in the cocaine trade. We acknowledge the limited scope of our research since there is scarce data and empirical research on organized crime and especially about activities and social connections between members of criminal networks. Within these limitations, the author hopes that this paper contributes to understanding the emerging trends in cocaine trafficking and the way criminal networks operate in the European cocaine market.
Since all cocaine producer countries are in Latin America, the author finds that European criminal networks greatly benefited from making social ties to those groups, primarily because they got direct access to cocaine, which allowed them to become a major subject of cocaine trafficking in Europe. Since social embeddedness theory presumes that criminal activities are based on social ties, and criminal network theory reflects on the relations between groups inside the network, the author finds that these theories are a very useful analytical frame in analyzing connections between criminal networks involved in cocaine trafficking.
On the example of Darko Šarić and his criminal network, we analyzed the role that social ties between his network and criminal networks from Colombia and Italy played in their success in the cocaine trade. Even when Šarić was arrested, his social ties were redirected to the Kotor clan, which took his place as cocaine importer in Europe. Besides Serbian and Montenegrin criminal groups, the author finds that social relations play a major role in the rise of other cocaine smugglers, among which are British, Dutch, Italian, and immigrant networks. 'Ndrangheta, the biggest cocaine trafficker in Europe, used emigrants after World War II to make strong social connections in countries in all parts of the world. Dutch criminal networks have also used immigrants from Netherlands Antilles and Suriname to make connections to cocaine producer and transit countries. At the end of the paper, we have seen that ethnicity can be a predictor of immigrants' involvement in cocaine trafficking, due to their low social and economic status, but also because of strong social relations they have with their origin country.
To fight cocaine trafficking it is necessary to have a strategic approach based on the knowledge of flexibility, decentralization, and interdependence of criminal groups in cocaine networks. Therefore, we should consider replacing 'Mr. Big' strategy in fighting organized crime, since removing a "kingpin" doesn't solve the problem, as seen in the case of Šarić. We need a solution that is more efficient and that is based on international police cooperation, data sharing, and trust between police and security forces across countries. Also, the rigid and bureaucratic structure of law enforcement needs to be modernized into flexible operating networks, or otherwise, it won't be able to stand up to always adaptable organized crime networks. All these issues are very important and they make a good starting point for some future research endeavors. Van  Ključne reči: trgovina kokainom, socijalna povezanost, kriminalne mreže, socijalna uključenost.