Illicit financial flows: Illicit narcotics transiting West Africa

Summary

The paper is based on a review of the available secondary literature and interviews, and focuses on the cocaine trade due to the preponderance of available information and data compared to other types of drug trafficking. [...] The other four IFF case studies focus on the role of Al Qaeda and its affiliates in the Islamic Maghreb; illicit trade in counterfeit, pirated and substandard goods in Ghana; human smuggling from West Africa to Europe; and the artisanal and small-scale gold-mining sector in Ghana and Liberia. [...] This paper looks at the available evidence on the nature and scope of this illicit industry, the actors involved and its impacts on the development of the West Africa Region. [...] This report, led by prominent regional leaders, underscored the detrimental link between drug trafficking and the political, economic and social development of West African countries (WACD, 2014), although empirical challenges still remain in defining the nature of organised crime and illicit trafficking, and in assessing scale and impact in West Africa and across the African Continent more broadl [...] The extent of cocaine trafficking in the region In the mid-2000s, senior officials from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) signalled the problem of cocaine trafficking in the West Africa region.

Creators/Authors

Mark Shaw