Lax law enforcement, a strategic location and an inexhaustible supply of couriers have made west Africa an emerging transit point for South American and homegrown cartels shipping drugs to Europe and beyond, say UN officials.
By building up a web of offshore drop sites and willing mules, both the Latin American cartels and smaller west African criminal networks have smuggled millions of dollars in cocaine, cannabis and heroin through the region over the last decade, the UN Office of Drug Control (UNODC) said in a new report.
"The role of the locals, in most cases, is very limited except for allowing the cartels to locate facilities and logistic bases in west Africa," Antonio Mazitelli, west and central Africa director for UNODC, told reporters.
"Still, most of the major seizures in the last year have had some connection with west Africa, which means that there is a lot more slipping through."
War-torn Sierra Leone and Liberia have been ideal ports of call for ships to offload tonnes of drugs sent by the Brazilian, Colombian and Venezuelan cartels that dominate the cocaine trade.
Ivory Coast, too, was a major conduit for heroin until war broke out in September 2002 and made the ports at Abidjan and San Pedro less viable for smugglers, according to the UNODC report.
But it is Cape Verde, the tiny archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, that is the most popular spot for drug shipments, noted a rueful Virgilio Varela, chief of judicial police.
"Even last week we seized 75kg of cocaine from seven Europeans who bought the drugs here, from a boat that landed without our knowledge, and were getting ready to take them to Europe," he told reporters.
"We are doing our best to stop the traffic and last year we were the number one country in Africa in stopping drugs. But it is hard; we have 2,000km of coastline and our territory [including territorial waters] covers 700,000km2," he said.
Sobered by the seriousness not only of the drug trade but also the impact drugs could have on Cape Verde's already impoverished population, the government has committed six million dollars to a new law enforcement program that will include better resources for air and maritime security.
"If every country in the region understood the threat of international organized crime as well as Cape Verde, we would be in a much better position," noted Mazitelli.
"But the financial and operational rewards may still be missing for that to happen."
The west African networks, in particular those run by the notorious Nigerian criminal gangs, also have an advantage in moving the drugs once they arrive in consumer nations, the report noted.
"Many of these networks are grounded in a common ethnicity, often including blood-ties," the report said. "Betraying compatriots is not only in violation of deeply ingrained values, it can result in exclusion from this vital support base."
That also translates into an enormous willingness on the part of unemployed youth in west African countries to risk their own lives as drug couriers, said Mazitelli.
"If you are without work and without money in Lagos and you are offered 1,000 dollars plus a visa and an airline ticket to Europe to swallow some condoms full of drugs, how are you going to say no?" he said.
"And then, once you are part of the diaspora community, and you are willing to do anything to survive, you almost become a hostage to those links with the criminal groups."
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