Drug Trafficking in West-Africa

The New Route of Cocaine: Bissau-Guinea

Abstract

Somewhere in South- or Central America cocaine shrubs are planted, watered and looked after. After the harvest one of the world’s most benefiting drugs, cocaine is extracted, and sold at American and European markets. The authors in their article neither describe the production, nor the consumption but the transit phase, which according to the latest tendencies more and more extends to the western, politically instable parts of Africa, especially to Bissau-Guinea. In the former Portuguese colony, struggling with civil wars and riots, smuggling and trading is undisturbed. The police and the army are mainly inactive, anyone can be bribed, and people in hopeless situation seek money and perspective from this new business. Investments are indeed flowing in since cocaine smuggling also needs infrastructural developments and new jobs – but for what price….