US Senate Panel Warns of Increasing Drug Trafficking between West Africa and Europe
A subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee heard testimony from experts on Tuesday, detailing the exploding drug trafficking problem in West Africa. According to the panel, West Africa has become a crucial transit point for cocaine from South America headed to customers in Europe, posing a major threat to political stability and security in West Africa and elsewhere. All of the experts testifying at the panel warned of a dangerous convergence in West Africa of South American drug kingpins looking to sell their cocaine, terrorist groups with bases in Africa and European buyers. The experts said cocaine is shipped from South America - often with Venezuela serving as a launching pad - broken down into smaller parcels when it arrives in Africa and transported by African "mules," or individual traffickers by land and air to thriving markets in Europe.
Note EU-Digest: On several occasions EU-Digest reported on this major problem and signaled that EU Governments and the European Parliament needed to take urgent action. So far there seems to have been no significant action on the part of European Governments or the EU-Parliament except for some ineffective general statements.
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