Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Bissau (Agenzia Fides) – The confiscation of over 500 kilograms of cocaine from a plane in the Bissau airport is showing the gravity of the drug-trafficking situation, especially, the extent of its complexity on all levels, to the benefit of traffickers in Guinea Bissau.
The local legal authorities have arrested the main director and the second-in-command of the control towers at the airport in Bissau, the most important in the country, on the accusation that they facilitated the illegal entrance in national airspace and landing of a plane from Venezuela. Inside the plane, police found 500 kilograms of cocaine. The three members of the crew, of Venezuelan nationality, have been arrested. However the most disturbing detail is the fact that a division of the local military had surrounded the plane immediately following its landing – not to register it, but to protect it from the police. A heated argument arose between the police and military soldiers and the event almost became an armed combat between two government entities. This occurrence has still not been clarified, although it does seem to reaffirm previous reports that claimed that some local military bases are used for trafficking cocaine from Latin America to Europe. Western Africa is being used more and more in drug-trafficking, as a stopping point for the drugs on the way to Europe.
The plane, a bimotor Gulfstream, was confiscated on July 12. The next day, in the same Bissau airport, another bimotor plane was detained, with 15 kilograms of cocaine. In a matter of 24 hours’ time, 515 kilograms of cocaine were confiscated from the same location – a fact that is self-explanatory as to the nature of the problem.
During these same days, in neighboring Sierra Leone, 700 kilograms of cocaine were confiscated in the Freetown (the nation’s capital) airport, in a plane with falsified Red Cross symbols that landed without authorization. The local police arrested about 60 people linked to the investigation. Among them was the director of the airport and 5 policemen, two of whom are high-ranking officers. There are also another 10 of foreign citizenship (from Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, and USA), which shows the international character of the problem.
In 2007, in Africa alone, 6 tons of cocaine were confiscated, 90% of it in western Africa. The drugs, from Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia make an initial stopover in Brazil and later another on the coast of western Africa. From their, they continue their trajectory until they reach Europe, home to about 4.5 million consumers. (LM) (Agenzia Fides 21/7/2008)
