Senegalese customs announced on Monday, November 25, the seizure of more than 230 kilos of cocaine. from a neighboring country “. Once spared, Senegal has today become a hub for drug trafficking in West Africa.
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The operation took place on Sunday. At around 10 a.m., the Koungheul mobile brigade, not far from the Gambian border, intercepted a suspicious pick-up. In its chassis, 210 strips of cocaine were discovered by customs officers. A seizure which, according to the General Directorate of Customs, amounts to 18.8 billion CFA francs, or nearly 28.66 euros.
This is not the first time this year that the Senegalese authorities have caught drug traffickers red-handed. In July, a truck carrying 360 kilos of cocaine was intercepted in the same region. In April, more than a ton was seized in Kidiraclose to the border with Mali.
Until recently, traffickers unloaded their goods from South America in ports on the Gulf of Guinea before transporting them through regions beyond the control of States. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, seizures of cocaine from the Gulf of Guinea, which did not exceed 13 kilos between 2015 and 2020, amounted to more than a ton in 2022, just in the Sahel countries.
The armed and rebel groups, in return for a tax, turned a blind eye to the goods transported. “ But these groups play no role in cocaine trafficking “, warns Mouhamadou Kane, analyst at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC).
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A paradigm that today seems to be evolving. According to Senegalese customs, more than two tonnes of white powder were seized on the Dakar-Kidira axis, between January and November 2024. A figure that is constantly increasing. Faced with the need to break routines and circumvent police checks, traffickers had to renew themselves and change their strategy. “ Recently, we have seen that cartels and criminal networks have multiplied strategies, routes outside the Sahelian roads, observes the analyst, they also pass through the coasts to reach Europe. They go through Mauritania, through Senegal… », thus explaining the explosion of seizures in the country of Teranga.
In recent years, cocaine seizure operations off the Senegalese coast have increased. In December 2023, the Senegalese army seized a boat from a ship boarded south of Senegalese waters. On board were six people of West African origin, a South American, as well as a cargo of three tons of white powder.