Illegal Cocaine Trade Via West Africa
Cocaine produced in Colombia, Venezuela and Bolivia has been increasingly shipped via West Africa (Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Liberia). The money is often laundered in countries as Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal.
Cargo planes are now also used as a method of transport from the production countries to West-Africa. Before this, the cocaine was only shipped to the USA. Because the market became saturated there, illicit drug traders decided to increase shipping to Europe. When these new drug routes were uncovered by the authorities, West Africa was chosen as a stop-over. In 2005, the first major cocaine shipment was intercepted by the police. In 2007, 30% of all cocaine shipped to the UK was estimated to come from West Africa. In 2009, 50% of all cocaine shipped to the UK was estimated to come from West Africa.
Drug mules, fishing boats, container ships, and submarines have been used to transship illegal drugs from West Africa to Europe.
Especially in Guinea-Bissau, the drugs have been traded with the help of political leaders such as former presidents, the son of dictator Lansana Conté, and chiefs of staff of the army.
According to the UN, the value of illicit drug smuggling in Guinea-Bissau is higher than the value of the country's GDP. Policemen are often bribed. A policeman's normal monthly wage of 75 € is less than 2% of the value of 1 kilogram of cocaine (7000 €).
The money can also be laundered using real estate. A house is built using illegal funds, and when the house is sold, legal money is earned.
Inexpensive illicit drugs, such as crack, are now in distribution. This decreases the economic productivity and diminishes any safety goal for the intended end user.
When drugs are sent overland, through the Sahara, the drug traders have been increasingly forced to cooperate with terrorist organisations, such as Al Qaida in Islamic Maghreb.
Read more about this topic: Illegal Drug Trade
Famous quotes containing the words illegal, cocaine, trade, west and/or africa:
“It ought to be illegal for an artist to marry.... If the artist must marry let him find someone more interested in art, or his art, or the artist part of him, than in him. After which let them take tea together three times a week.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“Woe to you, my Princess, when I come ... you shall see who is the stronger, a gentle little girl who doesn’t eat enough or a big wild man who has cocaine in his body.”
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)
“The glory of the farmer is that, in the division of labors, it is his part to create. All trade rests at last on his primitive activity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.”
—Rebecca West [Cicily Isabel Fairfield] (1892–1983)
“For Africa to me ... is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)