The UN agency that fights drugs and crime has estimated that cocaine trafficking is generating about $900m annually in West and Central Africa as South American cartels use the shortest route to transport drugs to Europe.



Yuri Fedotov, the Head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, told the UN Security Council on Tuesday that in addition to an upsurge in cocaine trafficking, West Africa was experiencing an increase in piracy, arms and human trafficking.


According to Sapa-AP, he said South American drug cartels were not only exploiting poverty but a lack of border controls, weak law enforcement, and endemic corruption in West Africa to reach Europe.


Fedotov said, “The West African transit route feeds a European cocaine market which in recent years grew four fold, reaching an amount almost equal to the US market.


“We estimate that cocaine trafficking in West and Central Africa generates some $900m annually.”


That estimate is up from an April 2011 UNODC report that put the figure at $800m for 2009.


Fedotov said illegal drug consumption was also growing fast in the region, where there are now up to 2.5 million drug users.


He said greater understanding was needed of the extent to which drug trafficking might be linked to piracy off West Africa's coast.


UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said there was a growing concern about stability in West Africa and the Sahel region to the north because of the rise in organised crime, drug trafficking and piracy, a growing food crisis, the influx of weapons from the upheaval in Libya, and the reported links between insurgent groups, criminal groups and terrorist organisations.


“There is even fear that we could see in this region a crisis of the magnitude of the one in the Horn of Africa,” Ban said, a reference to Somalia which remains a failed state, with the al-Qaida-affiliated militant group al-Shabab challenging a weak transitional government.


He told the council that an assessment mission he sent in December to look at the effects of the Libya crisis on the Sahel “found that terrorist groups, such as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, had begun to form alliances with drug traffickers, and other criminal syndicates.”


“Such alliances have the potential to further destabilise the region and reverse hard-won democratic and peacebuilding achievements.”


Benin's Minister of State for National Security Issifou N'Douro said the dispersal of Libya's arsenal and mass departure of Libyans following the ouster of Moammar Gadhafi “has considerably worsened the challenges that West Africa and the Sahel in particular are facing in terms of combatting organised transnational crime.”


The Libyan fallout has led to the growth and radicalisation of rebel groups in the Sahel states and “a resurgence in pernicious forms of coordinated criminal activity” such as kidnapping with ransom demands and shootouts between security forces and insurgents with better weapons, he said.


Togo's President Faure Gnassingbe, whose country holds the Security Council presidency this month and organised the meeting, said terrorist actions in Nigeria and the Sahel had added to West Africa and the Sahel becoming “channels for trafficking of all kinds.”

http://odili.net/news/source/2012/feb/24/824.html

$900m!!!!

Good gracious.

Is it too late for career change?

That was how Tinubu made his money!
IBB too!

Lasinoh:

That was how Tinubu made his money!
IBB too!

Tell us how you came to know this please.

^^^
Go and ask Dele Giwa in his grave!
Or you can ask Baba Suwe!

Abeg help us ask them. Na you make the flippant allegation to start with

snowdrops:

$900m!!!!

Good gracious.

Is it too late for career change?

No sir, it's not too late for a career change. Are you game?

I think that's a conservative figure. Even the cocaine revenues for Nigeria alone should top that. No wonder the barons in Festac are swimming in endless cash - Bentleys and Roll Royce Phantoms are a common sight there, while their wives and mistresses play around with countless BMW X6's.

'This Week in Nigeria'-Former governor pleads guilty to $200m fraud accusations, Boko Haram strikes again, Increase in oil production & much more! Stay current, stay informed,

http://thinkafricapress.com/nigeria/blog/week-nigeria-governor-ibori-pleads-guilty

White007:

No sir, it's not too late for a career change. Are you game?

Give me time to think

Its not surprising Drug biz no be small matter

Lasinoh:

That was how Tinubu made his money!
IBB too!

There were hustlers

Crime really pays. I need a link to get in.