WEST AFRICA A NEW HUB IN COCAINE TRAFFICKING

The Shift In Smuggling Routes To Europe Has Law Enforcement Officials Worried

MADRID -- A landmark shift in trafficking routes has transformed West
Africa into a hub for cocaine smuggled from South America to a
booming European market, anti-drug officials on three continents say.

Traffickers have established a haven and transit area along the Gulf
of Guinea to elude aggressive efforts to seize cocaine headed to
Europe. Anti-drug officials fear the new route will worsen
lawlessness in African countries already overwhelmed by crime,
poverty and instability.

Colombian gangsters have brought their swagger to the tiny West
African country of Guinea-Bissau, setting up elaborate front
companies, tooling around in flashy cars and allegedly buying
high-level protection. The use of drug "mules" has increased
dramatically: A single flight arriving in Amsterdam from Morocco in
December carried 32 West African passengers who had swallowed cocaine
packets or concealed them in their luggage.

"What was seen before as a threat has become a reality," said Lt.
Juan Llorente, an intelligence analyst for Spain's paramilitary Guardia Civil.

On April 1, eight European nations will launch a military-law
enforcement task force targeting cocaine traffic from Africa. The
Maritime Analysis Operations Center based in Lisbon will team police,
navy and customs resources, a model similar to a U.S. interdiction
unit in Florida.

The United States is the world's top market for cocaine, but use is
declining. In Europe, demand has hit all-time highs, led by Britain,
Spain, Italy and the Netherlands. A kilo (2.2 pounds) of cocaine
brings about $45,000 in Europe, compared with about $25,000 in the U.S.

Because of historic ties to Latin America, the Iberian Peninsula
remains the gateway to Europe. But aggressive Spanish and British
patrols have intercepted numerous shiploads headed for a smuggling
corridor on Spain's northwestern coast, prompting traffickers to turn
to Africa.

"Effective law enforcement is a particular challenge in Africa due to
the sheer number of containers that transit through the seaports, the
lack of trained inspectors and investigative intelligence, weak
governments and the widespread practice of corruption," Michael
Braun, chief of operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration, told Congress last year.

Traffickers stockpile cocaine in countries such as Cape Verde,
Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Togo, Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and
Mauritania. It is then moved north, often to clandestine landing
zones on the coasts of Spain and Portugal, or commercial ports such
as Barcelona, Rotterdam and Antwerp.

Smugglers use fishing vessels and commercial ship containers, and
occasionally enlist Moroccan smugglers to cross the Mediterranean.
Intelligence indicates that small planes and trucks, the latter
plying desert contraband trails, transport loads to North Africa, DEA
officials say.

The partnerships combine South American suppliers, transport
specialists predominantly from Nigeria and Ghana, and European
distributors, officials say. Colombian traffickers, whether
freelancers or cartel operatives, are popping up in remote African locales.

"There are so many Colombians in Guinea-Bissau," said a DEA official
who asked not to be identified. "They are running supposedly legit
businesses, driving Mercedeses. And they have informants -- they know
when the DEA shows up."

The former Portuguese colony, one of the 10 poorest nations in the
world, lacks a secure prison, border controls or police labs.

"All the institutions have collapsed," said Koli Kouame of Ivory
Coast, secretary of the U.N.'s International Narcotics Control Board.

Guinea-Bissau police firing guns in the air captured two Colombians
unloading 1,500 pounds of cocaine in September. After a police chief
announced the seizure, he was threatened by fellow officials
allegedly allied with Colombian traffickers. Authorities refused to
let a DEA agent see the drugs or the suspects, whom a judge released,
U.S. and European investigators say.

Colombians also set up a fish-processing factory, where in 2004
police found arms, drugs and a clandestine landing strip. Experts
worry that traffickers could eventually smuggle in precursor
chemicals and set up labs, enabling them to ship coca base across the
Atlantic instead of the more expensive finished product.

In addition, Guinea-Bissau is selling some of its islands, raising
fear that drug lords could buy one, Antonio Mazzitelli, regional
representative for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, said
in Senegal.

Even in comparatively stable Ghana, top officials were accused last
year of protecting a Venezuelan drug lord. Ghanaian police recorded
the continent's biggest cocaine bust last year, arresting Ghanaian
and Nigerian suspects with a Mercedes van containing almost 2 tons of
the drug concealed in boxes of fish.

Misery, disease and strife make it difficult for many African states
to devote much energy to anti-drug efforts, Kouame said. "If you have
a hierarchy of concern, this would not be No. 1 or 2 or 3 for them,"
he said. "In the past five years, countries have made great anti-drug
efforts. But you have so many calamities here and there that you can
understand that countries devote resources to other things."

Narcotics seizures in West and Central Africa jumped sixfold in 2004,
according to the Office on Drugs and Crime. But it said in a report
last year that "only a very small proportion of the cocaine passing
through the continent is actually being seized."

Portuguese police confiscated 32 tons last year, twice the total of
the previous year. They attributed the record amount largely to
intercepted loads from Africa.

The Africa-Europe route developed because of geography, economics,
interdiction and enterprising criminals. Criminal organizations from
around the world do business with Colombian traffickers, said Gen.
Oscar A. Naranjo of Colombia's national police, and both leftist
guerrillas and their right-wing paramilitary enemies take part in the
drug trade.

Cocaine also leaves for Africa from Brazil and Venezuela, which U.S.
and Colombian officials say has become a sanctuary for smugglers.

William Brownfield, U.S. ambassador to Venezuela, said recently that
the volume of drugs transiting that country has increased fivefold
since 2001 to 250 tons a year, a figure disputed by the government of
President Hugo Chavez. Half goes to the United States and half to
Europe, officials say.

In September, the DEA tipped Spain to a ship from Venezuela hauling
15 tons of cocaine. The ship off-loaded about 4 tons to a smaller
vessel in the Atlantic. Spanish authorities intercepted the smaller
load near Ibiza, where the cocaine had been transferred to fast boats
operated by Bulgarians and Croatians, the DEA official said. The
Spaniards caught up to the mother ship off West Africa, one of nine
major Spanish busts there last year.

In 2005, a Spanish-French operation resulted in the bust off the
Senegalese coast of the Tobago Clipper, a 39-foot sailboat skippered
by a Frenchman. The boat set sail from Havana and picked up 2.8 tons
of cocaine in Venezuelan waters; the cargo was en route to Europe via
Morocco, officials said.

Colombian traffickers based in Spain often supervise transatlantic
smuggling ships via satellite phone. And some cocaine shipments to
Africa are made aboard Gulfstream planes, the DEA official said.

Anti-drug agents are working to understand the role of Morocco, which
is also the world's top producer of cannabis.

In December, Spanish police intercepted a fast boat from Casablanca
trying to smuggle 3 tons of cocaine. The case revealed a partnership
among gangs from Morocco, Colombia and the Galicia region, a longtime
base of the cocaine racket, police said.

But there have not been many large cocaine seizures in Morocco.
Moroccan hashish traffickers seem reluctant to risk transporting the
harder drug, said Llorente of the Guardia Civil.

The emergence of Morocco as a cocaine trafficking front would be
ominous. Drug agents compare the potential scenario to Mexico in the
1980s, when Colombian cartels enlisted veteran smugglers of marijuana
and contraband to move cocaine across the U.S. border. Violence and
corruption mushroomed.

Meanwhile, the specter of Islamic extremism also plagues Morocco and
other countries on the African cocaine route. Extremists and drug
networks occasionally converge in northern Morocco. The suspected
leaders of a terrorist cell that killed 191 people in the 2004 Madrid
train attacks came from northern Morocco and allegedly were
traffickers turned extremists. They allegedly traded hashish for
explosives and justified drug dealing as jihad against the West.

"We know that drugs and terrorism can join together," the DEA
official said. "That's one of the reasons we are watching this very closely."

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Rotella reported from Madrid and Paris, Kraul from Bogota, Colombia;
Caracas, Venezuela; and Tampa, Fla
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