The illegal drugs industry is booming again—and weak states are most vulnerable
biggest-ever drug seizures took place on September 1st at a modest bungalow outside the town of Canchungo in Guinea-Bissau. Hidden behind a fake wall, Bissau-Guinean judicial police found 1,660kg of cocaine—enough to cut 100m lines. At two other houses nearby, they found a further 250kg of drugs. They arrested a dozen people, including three Colombians and a Mexican, and nabbed 18 cars and a speedboat. The drugs were destined for Mali and ultimately, Europe.
In the rich world, too, drug use is climbing again. In Britain the share of 16- to 24-year-olds who say they have taken a classdrug in the past year almost doubled between 2012 and 2018, to 9%. In America cocaine use is rising and drug overdoses, mostly of opiates, continue to kill around 70,000 people a year. And in countries from eastern Europe to Asia, demand for recreational drugs is growing with incomes.
Guinea-Bissau’s appeal is partly geographic. The country is a mere 3,000km from Brazil—about as close as Africa and South America get—and reachable by small aircraft fitted with fuel bladders. With over 80 islands, most uninhabited, it is easy to drop off drugs undetected, or to smuggle them in from boats. In the early days of the trade, when cocaine washed up on beaches, locals did not know what it was and used it as detergent or make-up. Now they know.
Soldiers killed Vieira in 2009, hours after his army chief of staff died in a bomb blast. Many locals suspect that Latin American cartels set up both murders. In 2012 the then head of the army, Antonio Indjai, launched a coup d’état, possibly to try to protect his alleged cocaine-trafficking business.
Guinea-Bissau is not the only place in west Africa to be afflicted by cocaine. In February nine tonnes were found in a ship in Cape Verde. In June police in Senegal seized 800kg hidden in cars on a boat from Brazil. And traffickers have political allies throughout the region. The eldest son of Lansana Conté, the late president of Guinea-Conakry, was jailed for 16 months there for his involvement in the drugs trade.
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