Criminal groups involved in international cocaine trafficking are engaged in fluid co-operation structures and employ variable key members and specialists. The scale, spread and fragmented nature of the drug trade allows a large number organized criminals, and also those at a lower level, to operate successfully and make considerable profits. Time spent in prison presents criminals with opportunities to form associations, including with those who provide access to overseas supplier networks.

Cocaine is supplied to groups engaged in Trafficking of Human Beings (THB) for sexual exploitation to ensure victim compliance, while stolen vehicles are used to transport and distribute cannabis. Enhanced cooperation levels have also given rise to a barter market, in which consignments of drugs and their precursors are exchanged for stolen property, firearms and, indeed other drugs, intensifying an informal economy which makes organized crime even less visible. The prominence of cash couriers as a means of remitting proceeds is likely to reflect attempts at evading digital surveillance and financial transfer thresholds.

Columbian, Peruvian and Bolivian organized crime groups and paramilitary terrorist groups, control the production and trade of cocaine.  Members of Latin America crime groups have established permanent residency in the EU, for instance in Spain and Portugal, where they run commercial enterprises such as bars, discotheques, real estate agencies and car rental agencies. OC (organized crime) groups are observed to have responsibility for logistics, concealment activities and the provision of legitimate employment to divert the attention of law enforcement from activities concerned with cocaine trafficking and the trafficking of human beings. The majority of OC groups operating in Spain have a life cycle of less than three years, before police intervention seriously disrupts or puts and end to their activities.

Most of the laboratories in Venezuela are used in the final stage of cocaine hydrochloride production. Cocaine is transported from the drug producing countries in Latin America to the EU by sea and by air. West Africa has become a major trans-shipment platform because of its strategic location between Latin America and markets in the E.U, it's fertile economic and political environment for managing trafficking activities and the absence of government effectiveness and the rule of law.

Mexico's drug cartels may have found a new route through the English port city of Liverpool for smuggling South American cocaine in Britain and the rest of Europe, working closely with local gangs to distribute the drug. Mexico's Sinaloa and Los Zetas cartels dominate cocaine smuggling from South America into Europe via ports in Venezuela. With a kilogram of cocaine estimated at over $63,000 in Italy, compared to the average price of between $28,000 and $38,000 in New York, the cartels see Europe as a lucrative and untapped market. The Balkan crime groups are believed to supply cocaine to Turkish crime groups in exchange for heroin. British traffickers are increasingly traveling to meet Columbian groups in their home country to source cheaper cocaine, giving them greater control of shipments and profits, albeit with higher transportation costs and greater risk of detection.