THE WEST AFRICAN CONNECTION: DRUG BARONS FIND NEW ROUTE ON TO THE STREETS OF
BRITAIN

:Cartels make switch after crackdown on shipping: Crime agency
steps up action in conflict countries.

Drug gangs are increasingly smuggling cocaine on to the streets of
Britain using new routes through west Africa, a senior intelligence
officer warns today.

Latin American cartels are developing the route into Europe after a
crackdown on transatlantic shipments, prompting the British agency
that fights organised crime to expand the number of field officers it
stations in countries such as Ghana to try to disrupt the trade.
According to UN estimates, more than a quarter of the cocaine used by
Europeans is now smuggled in through Africa.

In a rare interview, Rob Wainwright, international director of the
Serious and Organised Crime Agency (Soca), told the Guardian: "An
increasing trend is bringing cocaine by aircraft instead of by boat
into west Africa. Then it is taken on by land or ship to Europe,
across some dangerous and difficult terrain."

Soca's response comes amid concern that law enforcement initiatives
are failing to stem the flow of drugs into Britain. Wainwright said
Colombian cartels were exploiting countries recovering from conflict
in the area to transport drugs to the European mainland.

He said law enforcement activities aimed at large vessels crossing the
Atlantic may have forced drug barons to switch tactics. The ability of
Latin American gangs to change smuggling routes was "a symbol of the
globalisation of the problem". "We are forcing criminals to raise
their risk factors by turning up the heat and forcing them out of
their comfort zones," he said. Soca was developing new links with west
African countries to combat the trend, including the deployment of
three new field officers. At present, there is one liaison officer in
the region.

"It's too early to tell how much [cocaine] is arriving but it is not a
small amount," Wainwright said. "It is something to be worried about."
He said perhaps one drug consignment a month was arriving in west
Africa from Latin America.

Three British teenage girls have been jailed for smuggling cocaine via
Africa. In May, Carly Plunkett, 19, was jailed for five and a half
years after being stopped at Gatwick on her way back from the Gambia.
She had UKP 250,000 of cocaine in her suitcase.

Two north London teenagers, Yasemin Vatansever and Yetunde Diya,
served a year in jail in Ghana after they were caught at Accra's
Kotoka airport last July carrying laptop bags containing cocaine worth
UKP 300,000. Customs officials believe the same gang was behind all
three cases, the Guardian has learned.

In another operation last month, in which Soca was involved, six
people were arrested in Fortaleza, Brazil, in connection with the
shipment of 840kg (1,852lb) of cocaine intercepted off the coast of
Ghana. Police seized 700kg of cocaine at Sierra Leone's main airport
last month, while another big seizure was made recently in Guinea-
Bissau.

One problem Soca faces is corruption among authorities and police
forces in west Africa. Soca said: "Corruption has always been in the
back of our minds in difficult operating environments such as Africa.
It is a challenge to find partners who we can trust, but we are making
headway."

The UN has highlighted the west African drugs trade as a growing
problem. Herve Ludovic de Lys, of the UN office for the co-ordination
of humanitarian affairs, estimated that more than a quarter of the
cocaine Europeans consume reaches them through west Africa. Although
the exact size of west Africa's drugs trade is unknown, De Lys said an
estimated 40 tonnes of Latin American cocaine passes through west
Africa each year, with an estimated value of around UKP 907m. He said
the trade could fuel violence, destabilising countries that were
recovering from conflict, such as Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ivory Coast.

A UK Drug Policy Commission report released last month said that law
enforcement was failing to impede the supply of drugs into Britain,
considered one of the world's most lucrative markets.

"It appears that additional enforcement efforts have had little
adverse effect on the availability of illicit drugs in the UK," the
report said. "Since 2000, average street prices in the UK have fallen
consistently for heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and cannabis."

The report also provided further evidence that cocaine, once
considered a drug for the rich, is being sold in an adulterated form
as a cheap drug targeted at young people.

"There is some evidence to suggest that a two-tier market for powder
cocaine has emerged in the UK during recent years at both wholesale
and street levels. These data suggest that there is now an expanding
market for cheaper, heavily adulterated cocaine among young people and
students, for example, and that higher purity cocaine is aimed at more
affluent buyers."

The average street price for cocaine has fallen from UKP 65 a gram in
2000, to between UKP 30 and UKP 50 - depending on the purity of the
powder - in 2007, the report said.

Harry Shapiro, of Drugscope, an independent centre of information on
drugs, said: "Over the past 10 years, cocaine has become increasingly
available in the UK. While it still retains its glamour image, prices
have fallen and put the drug within the reach of a wide range of
people for whom cocaine has become an unremarkable part of their lifestyle.

"It seems as if this process began with the break-up of the large
cocaine cartels in Colombia during the early 1990s, resulting in the
development of several smaller cartels who needed to find new outlets
beyond the traditional US market."