Wilson Briefs l December 2015

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Confronting Drugs,
Crime, and Warfare in Africa
By Robert I. Rotberg

SUMMARY
Insurgents, corruption, and weak governance have made Africa a
hub for clandestine narcotics shipments to Europe. Drug profits have helped
fuel the continents wars, including the bloodshed caused by al-Qaedalinked
militants. Better governance is the key to stopping this vicious trade, but
several new direct actions by the United States can also help.

Drug smuggling and its profits help significantly to fuel Africas wars as criminal enterprises.
Terrorists frequently build drug-driven hybrid organizations to finance their operations and
to reap illicit rents. In Mali, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo,
and Somalia, conflict is strongly tied to drug trafficking by syndicates allied to al-Qaeda
associated insurgents. The Boko Haram war in Nigeria has its narcotics component, and

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) partly finances its operations in Algeria, Libya,
Mali, Mauritania, and Niger (and perhaps in Tunisia) by trafficking drugs across the Sahara
(and thence to Europe). In Somalia, al-Qaeda affiliate al-Shabaab funds itself in part by
moving drugs into and out of East Africa. Slka, the insurgent group that fractured the
Central African Republic, has made money by transshipping drugs. Hezbollah, operating
among the Lebanese diaspora in West Africa, also profits from facilitating narcotics
smuggling.

The route to Europe

In the past decade, lucrative illegal drugs including cocaine from South America, heroin
from South Asia, methamphetamines and its precursors from Asia, and marijuana and
hashish from Africa and Pakistan increasingly have been smuggled through Africa to
Europe. According to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime,
about 30 tons, or $2 billion worth, of cocaine from Latin America passes
through West Africa to Europe every year, twice as much as in 2010.
Most of the Europe-bound cocaine originates in Peru and Colombia and
is flown in from Venezuela. The main African airports where corruption
and criminals facilitate transshipments from South America to Europe
are in Lagos, Nigeria; Accra, Ghana; and Dakar, Senegal. Large amounts
of cocaine are also smuggled into weakly governed Guinea-Bissau by

The main African airports

where corruption and
criminals facilitate
transshipments from
South America to Europe
are in Lagos, Nigeria;
Accra, Ghana; and Dakar,
Senegal.

private aircraft from Venezuela, Colombia, and Brazil. Guinea-Bissau,

reputedly the continents first narco state, recently experienced
several military coups motivated by vicious competition for control of the drug trade.
From Guinea-Bissau, Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal (and more recently, Mali), illicit drugs
eventually cross the Sahara in convoys guarded by AQIM, and then are shipped from
Algeria and Morocco to Spain. There are reports that Colombian drug smugglers have
established themselves in nearly all West African countries.
Heroin arrives in Africa en route to Europe from the east. Although Afghanistan and Burma
grow the poppies, opiate refining often is done in India, Pakistan, and Thailand; then the
narcotics are usually transshipped to Europe through airports in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Dar
es Salaam, Tanzania; and Mombasa and Nairobi in Kenya. The seaports of Dar es Salaam,
Djibouti, and Mombasa serve the dhows and larger ships that help smuggle the cargo from

WILSON BRIEFS

India en route to Europe. Some heroin is also forwarded to the United States and Canada
from Kenya via Nigeria.

The Nigerian connection

Nigerian gangs are believed to control much of the heroin smuggled across Africa, and are
assumed to be behind the spread of heroin to Mozambique and Malawi from South Africa.
In 2012 alone, authorities seized 200 kilograms of heroin in Nigeria, five times the amount
confiscated in 2011.
Nigerians also control much intra-African trade in marijuana, which they also ship to Europe
in quantity. Nigerians also transship qat (khat), the Somali mild-narcotic of choice, to Somali
communities and others in Europe and North America.
Nigeria is a major producer of methamphetamines (meths). One clandestine laboratory
shut down in 2011 was capable of turning out 440 pounds of meths per week. In Malaysia,
1 kilogram of meths is worth at least $40,000; in Japan and South Korea, it fetches as

Only responsible and toughminded leadership, as in

Botswana, can provide
incentives for honest policing
and successful combating of
corruption.

much as $200,000. Methamphetamine manufacturing

requires ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, which mostly
are shipped to North America (especially Mexico) from Asia
through Africa. During a six-month operation in 2010, the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) seized thirty-five
shipments of these chemicals in Kenya en route to Nigeria,
a total of 53 metric tons, worth approximately $80 million.
Many more shipments of both the precursor chemicals

doubtless reached Nigeria first, and then, together with manufactured meths, Mexican
laboratories. From Mexico, the final product was smuggled to the United States and
Canada.
Suppressing African drug trafficking requires better policing and better security controls.
But improved law enforcement depends on strengthened rule of law, curbs on corruption,
and more transparencyin other words, better governancewhich in Africa is difficult
to achieve. Only responsible and tough-minded leadership, as in Botswana, can provide
incentives for honest policing and successful combating of corruption. Even Ghana, the
best-run and most prosperous West African state, has not managed to control its drugrunning gangs.

WILSON BRIEFS

Drug trafficking across Africa will continue until its emerging middle class demands
responsible governance, leading to improved law enforcement.

Legalizing and thus potentially decriminalizing the use of cocaine, heroin, and
marijuana in Europe and Africa, recommended by former United Nations SecretaryGeneral Kofi Annan and others, would lower the price of these drugs, make them
taxable, and reduce incentives for smuggling. No African ruling elites, however, as yet
favor legalization.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which collaborates with foreign

governments through investigative work, training, institution building, and intelligence
sharing, can continue to help Africans strengthen their investigative capacities and
sea and air defenses against narcotics trafficking. The DEA can also work with its
counterparts in Brazil to prevent narcotics flights from that country. Flights from
Venezuela need to be intercepted off Guinea-Bissau and Senegal. Such steps may
require the U.S. Congress to raise the DEAs budget. The U.S. Department of Defense
and State Department, too, through their longstanding maritime safety and security
programs in Africa, can contribute to African counternarcotics activities.

In order to pressure African governments to do more, U.S. authorities should threaten

to remove American landing rights to all airlines operating out of airports that serve as
persistent drug-smuggling hubs.

Robert I. Rotberg is the Founding Director of Harvard Kennedy

Schools Program on Intrastate Conflict. He was a fellow at the Wilson
Center in 201415.

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