Friday, May 3, 2013

Cocaine flows through Sahara as al-Qaida cashes in on lawlessness

 

Cocaine flows through Sahara as al-Qaida cashes in on lawlessness

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/02/cocaine-flows-through-sahara-al-qaida

 

Young Malians risk their lives to earn big money transporting drugs across

desert

    Afua Hirsch in Timbuktu

    guardian.co.uk, Thursday 2 May 2013 11.35 EDT   

    Jump to comments (28)

 

burnt-out-Boeing-Sahara

The wreckage of a Boeing 727, which was believed to have been carrying up to

10 tonnes of cocaine when it crashed in the Malian desert. Photograph: Serge

Daniel/AFP/Getty Images

 

As the daily power cut struck Timbuktu, the town and surrounding desert were

plunged into a sandy, grey darkness. Mohamed – a 31-year-old native of the

town dressed in rich, deep blue cloth that engulfed his head in the

traditional Tuareg style – seemed to shrink further into the shadows. He

tipped ash into a saucer as he talked and smoked, telling his story for the

first time.

 

"I didn't know cigarette trafficking was illegal," he said, exhaling into

the black. "I smoke, everyone here smokes, so it didn't seem serious. But

when I started transporting cocaine … I'm a Muslim, I knew it was wrong."

 

In 2009 Mohamed, who spoke to the Guardian on condition of anonymity, joined

a team that drove packages of cocaine across the Sahara. He and his boss –

who introduced him to the illicit trade in cigarettes as a young apprentice

– were lured into the business by the apparent wealth of Moroccan and

Algerian narco-traffickers whom they encountered in desert towns.

 

"When we transported cigarettes, I would be paid around 100,000 CFA francs

[about £130] for each trip. With cocaine, I earned 1 million," Mohamed

explained. "We would drive through the desert in convoys, and each car would

earn roughly 18m CFA – the driver, security man and I would all be paid a

fee, and my boss would keep the rest."

 

It is impossible to estimate how many young Malians are, like Mohamed, drawn

into drug trafficking by the prospect of earning big money in short periods.

In a region where youth unemployment and poverty are high, the prospect of

travelling for days at a time through one of the most inhospitable terrains

on earth offers little deterrent.

 

"It was hard, but there was no other way I could earn that kind of money,"

said Mohamed. "Our routes were never fixed, but we would drive 24 hours a

day, without stopping, until we got there. We would eat tinned food, and

prepare tea in the car. The most important thing was to get there as quickly

as possible."

 

The UN estimates about 18 tonnes of cocaine, with an estimated street value

of $1.25bn (£800m), crosses West Africa every year – nearly 50% of all

non-US-bound cocaine. Most of it originates in Columbia, Peru and Bolivia,

and travels to west Africa on private jets, fishing boats and freighters

along the notorious "Highway 10" — the shortest route between the continents

along the 10th parallel of latitude.

 

Now the role of al-Qaida-linked Islamists – who controlled northern Mali

from early 2012 until they were ousted by French and African troops this

year – is fuelling fears for the potential of the drug trade to destabilise

the region.

 

"There is hard evidence of the link between al-Qaida and cocaine trafficking

in the Sahara," said Dr Kwesi Aning, director of academic affairs and

research at the Kofi Annan international peacekeeping training centre in

Ghana. "In the beginning, the trade was mainly dominated by Tuaregs and

middlemen who guided traffickers to water and fuel dumps in the desert. But

after al-Qaida got involved around 10 years ago, we saw a massive increase

in the quantities of cocaine involved. They had the networks, and they had

the logistical know-how."

 

Experts say the lack of law enforcement in the Sahara has allowed both

Islamism and the cocaine trade to flourish, with vast, inhospitable,

mountainous desert borders all but impossible to police. Many in Mali also

accuse successive regimes of the now ousted president Amadou Toumani Touré

of being deeply complicit in the trade.

 

The region's lawlessness was blamed for the 2009 "Air Cocaine" incident,

when a Boeing 727 believed to have been carrying up to 10 tonnes of cocaine

was found burnt-out in the Malian desert. In 2010, a Malian police

commissioner was convicted in connection with attempts to build an airstrip

in the desert for future landings. And in the same year, the UK Serious

Organised Crime Agency reported that a plane from Venezuela had landed in

Mali, and that its cargo was driven by 4x4 vehicles to Timbuktu before

authorities lost track of the convoy.

 

"You have to bear in mind that we are talking about the middle of nowhere,"

said Pierre Lapaque, representative of the United Nations office on drugs

and crime (UNODC) regional office for west and central Africa. "It's a huge

piece of sand where you can easily cross borders without knowing it. It is a

serious challenge for law enforcement.

 

"On top of that, these are countries where law enforcement officers are

poorly trained, poorly equipped and corrupt, and were logistics don't work.

Put that together, and it's a nice opportunity for criminals," he added.

 

The Nigerian former president Olusegun Obasanjo, commissioner for the

recently formed West Africa Commission on Drugs, said: "These criminal

groups have the money to buy influence, which makes it difficult to

apprehend them. It is affecting the normal operations of civil, military and

paramilitary officials. [Drug traffickers] are even paying for political

campaigns."

Route taken by drugs

 

Mohamed said traffickers were highly organised and had well-established

means of making their presence even harder to detect. "We waited to collect

the drugs at a place between the mountains in the desert called 'al-Hanq' he

explained. "The drugs were transported there by camels which travelled

across the desert without a guide. The camels were trained by being starved

and taken through the same route repeatedly, and fed when they arrive at

al-Hanq, until they learned to do the journey alone.

 

"We would continue in convoys of 4x4s, but we had ways of hiding," Mohamed

added. "A reconnaissance vehicle would always go ahead, with no drugs on

board, and alert us to any obstacles. We would put grease on the car and

stick sand on it as a camouflage, that way it's impossible to see from a

distance in the desert."

 

Lapaque said: "We have heard about camels being trained to carry drugs.

These are criminal groups which are well organised, and you have to

understand that they have a business approach. They are weighing the

potential risks against profits, which are really huge."

 

Mohamed said he had learned the risks first hand, and has now left the

business after his convoy was attacked by heavily armed bandits. "We had

stopped to repair a problem with the car, when a car mounted with weapons

opened fire on us," he said. "I ran three hundred metres on foot until the

shooting stopped, but three of my colleagues and all the attackers were

killed. Two vehicles were burnt completely. It scared me so much, I told my

boss I didn't want to be involved any more."

 

Mohamed said his boss is now a senior figure in the drug trade, with a

mansion in the Nigerien capital, Niamey. In Timbuktu, the presence of drug

chiefs is an open secret, he says, although many were forced to flee during

the war.

 

"Everyone knows who in Timbuktu is doing drug trafficking, even the

government," Mohamed said. "When senior officials [in the last government]

came to Timbuktu, the drug traffickers were the ones who provided them with

36 brand new 4x4s."

 

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