Detection of illegal MArIjuana plantations using Artificial Intelligence-based technologies

ended

Drug trafficking is big business, bringing in a fifth of all profits from organised crime. It ravishes communities, endangers businesses, strains government institutions, and drags down the wider economy. The EU is aware of this situation. Thus drug trafficking was included as one of the priorities adopted by the EU in its 4-year plan for the fight against serious and organised crime. This plan, known as the “EU policy cycle”, runs from 2017 until 2021. The EU's objectives regarding drug trafficking are: - To reduce the production and traffic of synthetic drugs, such as ecstasy and LSD. - To disrupt the criminal activities of organisations smuggling cannabis, heroin and cocaine into the EU. This project (MArIA project) will contribute to these EU’s objectives providing Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) with state-of-the-art Artificial Intelligence-based systems to detect illegal cannabis plantations both outdoors and indoors. The main impact of the introduction and use of these state-of-the-art systems by the LEAs will be reduction of illicit drug trafficking, in particular of cannabis, which remains by far the largest drug market in the EU.