Pubdate: Tue, 26 Aug 2008 Source: Guardian, The (UK) Copyright: 2008 Guardian Newspapers Limited Contact: http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/175 THE WEST AFRICAN CONNECTION: DRUG BARONS FIND NEW ROUTE ON TO THE STREETS OF BRITAIN :Cartels make switch after crackdown on shipping: Crime agency steps up action in conflict countries. Drug gangs are increasingly smuggling cocaine on to the streets of Britain using new routes through west Africa, a senior intelligence officer warns today. Latin American cartels are developing the route into Europe after a crackdown on transatlantic shipments, prompting the British agency that fights organised crime to expand the number of field officers it stations in countries such as Ghana to try to disrupt the trade. According to UN estimates, more than a quarter of the cocaine used by Europeans is now smuggled in through Africa. In a rare interview, Rob Wainwright, international director of the Serious and Organised Crime Agency (Soca), told the Guardian: "An increasing trend is bringing cocaine by aircraft instead of by boat into west Africa. Then it is taken on by land or ship to Europe, across some dangerous and difficult terrain." Soca's response comes amid concern that law enforcement initiatives are failing to stem the flow of drugs into Britain. Wainwright said Colombian cartels were exploiting countries recovering from conflict in the area to transport drugs to the European mainland. He said law enforcement activities aimed at large vessels crossing the Atlantic may have forced drug barons to switch tactics. The ability of Latin American gangs to change smuggling routes was "a symbol of the globalisation of the problem". "We are forcing criminals to raise their risk factors by turning up the heat and forcing them out of their comfort zones," he said. Soca was developing new links with west African countries to combat the trend, including the deployment of three new field officers. At present, there is one liaison officer in the region. "It's too early to tell how much [cocaine] is arriving but it is not a small amount," Wainwright said. "It is something to be worried about." He said perhaps one drug consignment a month was arriving in west Africa from Latin America. Three British teenage girls have been jailed for smuggling cocaine via Africa. In May, Carly Plunkett, 19, was jailed for five and a half years after being stopped at Gatwick on her way back from the Gambia. She had UKP 250,000 of cocaine in her suitcase. Two north London teenagers, Yasemin Vatansever and Yetunde Diya, served a year in jail in Ghana after they were caught at Accra's Kotoka airport last July carrying laptop bags containing cocaine worth UKP 300,000. Customs officials believe the same gang was behind all three cases, the Guardian has learned. In another operation last month, in which Soca was involved, six people were arrested in Fortaleza, Brazil, in connection with the shipment of 840kg (1,852lb) of cocaine intercepted off the coast of Ghana. Police seized 700kg of cocaine at Sierra Leone's main airport last month, while another big seizure was made recently in Guinea- Bissau. One problem Soca faces is corruption among authorities and police forces in west Africa. Soca said: "Corruption has always been in the back of our minds in difficult operating environments such as Africa. It is a challenge to find partners who we can trust, but we are making headway." The UN has highlighted the west African drugs trade as a growing problem. Herve Ludovic de Lys, of the UN office for the co-ordination of humanitarian affairs, estimated that more than a quarter of the cocaine Europeans consume reaches them through west Africa. Although the exact size of west Africa's drugs trade is unknown, De Lys said an estimated 40 tonnes of Latin American cocaine passes through west Africa each year, with an estimated value of around UKP 907m. He said the trade could fuel violence, destabilising countries that were recovering from conflict, such as Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ivory Coast. A UK Drug Policy Commission report released last month said that law enforcement was failing to impede the supply of drugs into Britain, considered one of the world's most lucrative markets. "It appears that additional enforcement efforts have had little adverse effect on the availability of illicit drugs in the UK," the report said. "Since 2000, average street prices in the UK have fallen consistently for heroin, cocaine, ecstasy and cannabis." The report also provided further evidence that cocaine, once considered a drug for the rich, is being sold in an adulterated form as a cheap drug targeted at young people. "There is some evidence to suggest that a two-tier market for powder cocaine has emerged in the UK during recent years at both wholesale and street levels. These data suggest that there is now an expanding market for cheaper, heavily adulterated cocaine among young people and students, for example, and that higher purity cocaine is aimed at more affluent buyers." The average street price for cocaine has fallen from UKP 65 a gram in 2000, to between UKP 30 and UKP 50 - depending on the purity of the powder - in 2007, the report said. Harry Shapiro, of Drugscope, an independent centre of information on drugs, said: "Over the past 10 years, cocaine has become increasingly available in the UK. While it still retains its glamour image, prices have fallen and put the drug within the reach of a wide range of people for whom cocaine has become an unremarkable part of their lifestyle. "It seems as if this process began with the break-up of the large cocaine cartels in Colombia during the early 1990s, resulting in the development of several smaller cartels who needed to find new outlets beyond the traditional US market." - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin