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Drug trafficking continues to grow in West Africa, where 14.2 tonnes of cocaine were seized each year on average between 2019 and 2022, compared to 5.5 tonnes for 2007 alone. A colossal source of corruption, the Latin American cartels have become ubiquitous.
Knowing that it takes multiply by 20 seizures made to get an idea of the real traffic, about 1,140 tons of cocaine have transited since 2019 through West Africa. That is a market value of 57 billion euros, each gram being sold for 50 euros in the cities of Europe. In other words, over the past four years, annual cocaine trafficking has represented half of Senegal’s GDP, nearly all of Niger’s or Guinea’s GDP, and almost ten times that of Guinea-Bissau.
This Portuguese-speaking state has become a textbook case of a country plagued by narcos. Despite the responses attempted by the Community of West African States (ECOWAS), there remains a front door wide open for cocaine produced in Latin America. The consequences are very direct on the political stability of the country. An assault was given on February 1, 2022 at the government palace where a Council of Ministers was held. The coup attempt killed 11 and was denounced by President Umaro Sissoco Embalo as being linked to drug trafficking.
« Main activity of the military elite in Bissau »
In what precisely? The president has accused three men, including former navy chief Bubo Na Tchuto, arrested in 2013 by the US drug enforcement agency (Drug Enforcement Administration, DEA), who considers him a drug kingpin. He was again arrested in Bissau. While a canadian university study d’Usherbrooke asserts that narcotics have become the ” main economic activity of the country’s military elite “, the detractors of the head of state, who is himself a former general, recall that he was close to Antonio Indjai, author in 2012 of the so-called “cocaine” coup. This putsch had allowed officers to dismiss a civilian Prime Minister, Carlos Gomes Junior, who was then trying to contain them, in order to regain control of the traffic.
Today, the drugs seized are evaporating in large quantities. Seven suspects appeared in court in Bissau last February, after a seizure of 980 kg of cocaine incriminating three Colombians, a Mexican, a Malian and seven Bissau-Guineans. Of this total, 975 kg have purely and simply disappeared into nature, explained Domingos Monteiro, the director of the judicial police. It is presumed that it was elements of the security and defense forces who seized it ».
Narcoterrorism in Mali
Guinea-Bissau is only a stage on the road to the cartels. In 2008, UNODC reported already that ” most cocaine from South America lands by boat in northern Guinea-Bissau and southern Ghana “, before being shipped to France, Spain and the United Kingdom by air, on commercial flights, via “mules” or smugglers from Guinea Conakry, Mali, Nigeria and Senegal, ready to swallow pellets of cocaine. Contraband also goes up by road via Mali, Niger and Libya, before crossing the Mediterranean by boat.
Gambia, Guinea, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Benin… Trafficking spares no more West African coastal countries, contrary to what the polarization on the case of Mali could lead one to believe. The West African Commission on Drugs (WACD), launched in 2013 by Kofi Annan, believes that it can ” prove dangerous to exaggerate the threat of narcoterrorism “, in which are involved Islamist armed groups who levy rights of way, of course, but also “ members of the political and business communities of northern Mali ».
« Very large sums in the hands of political actors »
What about Bamako? The traffic grew in the 2000s under the presidency of Amadou Toumani Touré (ATT), as evidenced by the “Air Cocaïne” affair, the nickname given to the wreckage of a Boeing 727 found in 2009 in the middle of the desert. The plane, rented in Venezuela, flew under a Bissau-Guinean license between Colombia and Mali. The WikiLeaks revelations indicated in 2011 that civil aviation such as the narcotics brigade in Mali were excluded from the investigation by the executive, which also refused to share its information with UNODC, the UN agency for the fight against drugs and crime.
It is difficult to get a clear idea of the political consequences of the current state of the traffic, insofar as the UNODC no longer gives details by country in its reports. The Intergovernmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA), quoted by a WADC reportmentions for his part “ very large sums of money that fall into the hands of important political actors without naming names. A WADC member quoted by German wave claims to have documented evidence that politicians in the sub-region are involved. There are even some who financed their election campaigns with this money ».
Rising tide of white powder
Cape Verde, on the other hand, does not let it go. It sets itself up as a fairly isolated counter-example for its fight against narcos, which have been ubiquitous since the 2000s. Record seizures (16.6 tonnes between 2019 and 2022) are made in this Portuguese-speaking archipelago, stable, sparsely populated and accustomed to democratic alternations. They indicate both the high level of trafficking and the political will deployed to curb it.
This does not prevent the money from being laundered with a vengeance, and the rising tide of white powder from increasing local consumption – as in Conakry, Abidjan or Dakar. The omerta prevails in Cape Verde, the rare voices which rise exposing themselves to reprisals. ” In 2014, the mother of a narcotics investigator was murdered, and the prime minister’s son was injured in a shooting a few months later “, highlighted Mouhamadou Kane, consultant-researcher for the project Enhancing Africa’s Response to Transnational Organized Crime (ENACT) in Dakar.
The authorities in Praia nonetheless remain determined. A five-year plan to fight organized crime was launched in 2018 with the support of Portugal, the United States and France. The only problem: it requires financing of around 6 million euros, which remains difficult to find. This amount (0.01% of the market value of the volumes of cocaine transiting through West Africa) reflects an impressive inequality of means between the cartels and the States.
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