Transo-Pharm Handels-GmbH
Part VI: The German chemical firms fueling Lima's ketamine market and how they are making millions from pink cocaine.
The Hamburg, Germany-based chemicals firm Transo-Pharm Handels-Gmbh was one of the primary suppliers of ketamine hydrochloride to Lima-based Laboratorios Labodec S.A.C during the pandemic. Laboratorios Labodec S.A.C.’s brand of Soloket is consistently the top brand of ketamine we have identified in police and customs seizures.
Source: Google Earth Pro
Transo-Pharm Handels-Gmbh appears in Google Earth as a commercial building in the rural community Siek in the district of Stormarn. Its geo-coordinates are: 53.642818,10.2642803,2444m. The building appears to be nestled in between a dentist’s office and an auto mechanic shop.
Source: Google Street View
Labodec SRL imports legal, medical-grade ketamine from Transo-Pharm Handels-Gmbh to the warehouse above. Labodec SRL’s warehouse and laboratory are located in an industrial zone on the outskirts of Lima in Los Cactus district (geo-coordinates: -12.0640829,-76.9681149,800m).
Source: Veritrade
This is a screen grab from Veritrade’s data showing Laboratorios Labodec S.A.C. import values. In the period before the pandemic (2017-2019) Labodec reported lesss than USD$100,000 in imports. In 2020, it imported USD$1 million in volumes and in 2021, it imported $2.3 million in volumes of chemical shipments.
Source: Veritrade
Nearly all of the shipments we have identified in customs and trade data show one single chemical product being shipped from Transo-Pharm Handels Gmbh to Laboratorios Labodec S.A.C. It is ketamine hydrochloride, the chemical that Labodec transforms into Soloket brand ketamine in their Lima factory. It is this source of ketamine that is flooding Latin America’s drug markets in the form of pink cocaine.
Source: Bloomberg
A source with access to Transo-Pharm Handels-Gmbh financial statements shared the revenues of the company for the period 2012-2020. The company reported just less than USD$20 million in revenues in the two years leading up to the pandemic. The Tusi Files has not yet been able to obtain updated financial statements on the company.
In March 2024, we obtained an updated version of Laboratorios Labodec S.A.C. import data from Veritrade. Laboratorios Labodec S.A.C. adjusted their trade data to show approximately USD$500,000 in import volumes during the year 2021. In 2022, the company reported USD$3 million in imports. In 2023, it reported $2.2 million in imports of chemical shipments.
If Transo-Pharm Handels Gmbh’s other lines of business remained unchanged during the pandemic, then Lima ketamine shipments likely accounted for between 10% and 15% of its total revenues. In other words, the COVID-19 pandemic pink cocaine boom led by Colombian mafia organizations was a significant driver of Transo-Pharm Handels-Gmbh’s revenues.
Source: Transo-Pharm Handels-Gmbh
Furthermore, Transo-Pharm Handels-Gmbh appears to be an industrial intermediary between Indian and Chinese chemical manufacturers and global pharmaceutical manufacturers across the world. One of its sourcing partners is Ningbo Transo-Pharm Co. Ltd. Another one is Vitalchemie Pvt. Ltd., based in Mumbai.
Source: Google Street View
Here is a screenshot of the Vitalchemie chemical factory at address: Vitalchemie Corporation, 125, Andheri Industrial Estate, 22, Veera Desai Road, Andheri West, Andheri West, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400053, India (geocoordinates: 19°07'58"N 72°50'01"E). Here, at Vitalchemie’s factory in the port of Mumbai is where pink cocaine’s journey begins.
Source: Panjiva
Being skeptical of the Veritrade data, The Tusi Files obtained commercial trade data published by Panjiva on Peruvian Laboratorios Labodec S.A.C. Indeed, the data does not lie: Labodec exclusively imports ketamine. From March 2022 through January 2024, Labodec reported 8,480.8 kilograms (8.8 tonnes) of ketamine imports. The supplier in the Panjiva data, which is more recent, appears to be CU CHEMIE UETIKON, possibly the outsourcing manufacturer that Transo-Pharm Handels Gmbh.
Source: Veritrade
An more recent Veritrade screen shot from March 2024 suggests that Transo-Pharm Handels Gmbh and CU Chemie Uetikon might share a commercial agreement for exporting ketamine to Labodec. Their entity names are shared in Labodec’s trade data above.
In any case, the Panjiva trade data proves that there was effectively an average of 4.4 tonnes per year of ketamine flowing through Lima into the pink cocaine supply chain during the years 2022 and 2023 via legitimate corporate entities based in Germany and India.
The evidence here firmly demonstrates a parabolic trend of ketamine demand through legitimate entities in Lima, Peru. That is likely a reflection of the underworld demand for synthetic drugs precursors provoked by Latin America’s mafia organizations strategy to export a new superdrug into the world’s drug markets: tusi.