Africa's drugs gateway to Europe
Updated on 19 July 2007
The West African state of Guinea Bissau has become a "narco-state", a stop-off point for Colombian cocaine en route to Europe.
It's a key route for most of the cocaine that ends up on Britain's streets. And it's a country so lawless that one drugs enforcement official told us: "It's a narco state, out of control, and there's nothing we can do short of invading."
International agencies claim the tiny West African state of Guinea-Bissau is in hock to Columbian drugs barons - who, they allege, have bought up two of its islands and paid off the military. They now admit they've been caught napping by the sheer scale of the traffic problem.
Guinea-Bissau lies at a crucial point for South American cartels trying to get their drugs into Europe. Light aircraft are thought to carry it from Brazil to land in the remote islands of Guinea-Bissau's Bijagos archaepelego. The cocaine then travels on to Europe- by boat, shipping container, plane, or truck.
Already struggling from the legacy of civil war - a collapse in the price of cashew nuts, its only export, has further strengthened the grip of the cartels. That's left a terrible legacy: crack addiction.
Jonathan Miller's report
They call it qisa. We call it crack. And when a cocaine epidemic hits a dirt-poor African country, we're all in trouble.
Throughout West Africa, cocaine shipments heading towards Europe are seized on an almost daily basis now - the largest recent haul in Senegal.
Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency has identified what it calls the increasing threat to the UK posed by Colombian trafficking groups shipping through West Africa. Other western intelligence sources admit to having been shocked and blind-sided by the sheer scale of the trafficking.
The regional head of the United Nations narcotics agency says recent seizures are down to luck, not good intelligence.
Antonio Mazzittelli from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime says that already this year several tonnes of cocaine have been seized in West Africa or coming from West Africa.
Most of the big drugs seizures recovered recently have been the result of mechanical failures: a boat abandoned on the shore or an airplane that had to make an emergency landing.
West Africa is now the Colombian cocaine cartels back door to Europe. And it's wide open.
Channel 4 News saw fifty bales of Colombian cocaine found on an abandoned boat off the Senegal coast this month. We were told this represents a tiny fraction of a vast tonnage now being shipped northwards from West Africas drugs nexus, further down the coast.
It's the worst trafficking problem we've ever encountered on the continent, one European agent told me.
Channel 4 News saw fifty bales of Colombian cocaine found on an abandoned boat off the Senegal coast this month.
In the space of just four days, they seized nearly two-and-a-half tonnes of pure cocaine here. This discovery is probably just the tip of the iceberg. And they found it not because they were looking for drugs but because they were looking for people.
Senegalese police funded by Europe's border guards, Frontex, found the boat while out looking for illegal migrants. It had developed engine trouble; its occupants had jumped overboard and swum ashore.
They caught them - three Latinos who'd been living in Senegal for more than a year - in raids on two local houses which netted another 50 bales of cocaine. These are the footsoldiers; the two big fish got away.
But the police got their passports and Hollywood-style cocaine cartel paraphernalia: guns, ammo, night-vision sights, sim cards for mobile networks across West Africa and South America.
The passports are all fakes; the men are Colombian. As instructive, where they'd been on them. And one country's stamp dominating all these passports pages.
Among the passports, an ID card, issued by Guinea Bissau's Interior Ministry, granting one of the Colombians residency in the former Portuguese colony.
We got Guinea Bissau stamps in our own passports and followed the trail to a tiny country of one-and-a-half-million people, now branded Africa's first narco-state; its weak government reportedly hostage to a military which drug enforcement agencies fear is on the Colombian drug barons' payroll.
Poor country, flash cars
You wouldn't belive it, but this crumbling city, Bissau, is now the capital of a country through which western intelligence sources say hundreds of millions of pounds worth of pure cocaine transits every month - more than a tonne a day.
The ruins of the Presidential Palace, a metaphor for a failing state after one civil war and two coups in ten years.
Amid this decay, the incongruity of flash cars brazenly cruising the streets of the worlds fifth poorest country.
Within an hour of our arrival, an explosive interview was running on national radio. The voice was that of Mario Sa Gomez, Guinea Bissau's leading human rights advocate.
Sa Gomez says that at this time, drugs trafficking is threatening the dignity of the people of Guinea Bissau and our territorial integrity.
Civilians cannot struggle against drugs trafficking. It's the authorities who have to take steps to tackle the drugs trafficking. This is our concern. The quickest way to find a solution is the immediate dismissal of the the chiefs of the armed forces and the police.
That broadcast turned Mario Sa Gomes into Guinea Bissau's most wanted man. An arrest warrant was issued. He was immediately forced to go into hiding.
Guinea Bisseau lies at a crucial point for South American cartels trying to get their drugs into Europe.
We tracked down his family. Mario's father sees the soldiers looking for his son and he is very worried for him, he says Mario is his first son. Ineda Orelia said there was no one to protect her husband now.
Police from the Interior Ministry had already been here three times since the broadcast. Gomes senior interrupts to say they were back.
I asked the men whether they were from the police and why they came here. The policeman left. But he'd doubtless be back. Mario Sa Gomes had been jailed several times before; his family fear the worst if they catch him again.
His father says: "I am worried because four police cars are looking for Mario Sa Gomes. I think if they catch him they will kill him."
The prime minister acknowledges a trafficking problem but pleads ignorance of state complicity for what he insists is lack of evidence. He's new in the job and he appears pretty powerless to act.
Martinho Ndafa Kabi, the prime minister, says: "Mario Sa Gomes can say what he likes. It bears no relation to the government's ongoing investigation into what's happening. If I'd had a means to find out whats happening I'd have already taken appropriate measures. For the moment, I dont know anything and I have no means to find out whats going on."
Last month, Orlando da Silva man was fired as the head of the Judicial Police. He had been well aware of what was going on. Huge cocaine hauls hed seized, stolen back, he claims, by the army. Two Colombians hed arrested disappeared - as did all the cocaine. He says hes had death threats and was too fightened to talk on camera.
The man behind Orlando da Silva's dismissal is said to be Interior Minister Major Baciro Dabo, although he denies this. He wasnt that keen to talk. He doesn't think Guinea Bissau's drug trafficking problem is any different to any other country's.
"It's not a special thing in Guinea Bissau, drug trafficking can be seen in any part of this world, in Spain, Portugal, Cape Verde..."
The Major offered us quite a long list of countries where drugs have indeed been seized: "...Brazil, Senegal, Gambia, England and every part of this world. And Guinea Bissau is part of this world."
In Guinea Bissau though, seized drugs vanish. The Major is one of those who was tasked with investigating the mystery of the missing cocaine; the report's been completed, but remains unpublished.
Crack epidemic
Not all the cocaine goes to Europe. Guinea Bissau's awash with it and it's fuelled a crack epidemic among teenagers. There's chronic unemployment here, prospects are pretty much zero. Europe's designer drug of choice, enslaving Africans.
There's just one drugs rehab centre in Guinea Bissau, run by Pastor Domingus Te.
He has no government funding. His centre houses 65 cocaine addicts.
The local crack habit began with a shipwreck two years ago. Scores of 20kg bales washed up near here. Some people thought the white powder was paint; some thought it was fertiliser. Others started to smoke it.
The worst cases are kept behind bars. The Pastor was embarrassed by this but said it was done to stop them running away. It was at their families request, he added.
He said: "This is an extremely serious situation. It needs the urgent intervention of the international community in order to tackle the cocaine addiction among young people in Guinea Bissau."
'We need some protection, we do not need money. We need protection.'Mario Sa Gomes
José Americo Bubu Na Tchutu is the Head of the Navy - one of those accused of involvement by Mario Sa Gomes in his radio broadcast. Multiple western security sources claimed to us that he is the key facilitator for cocaine cartels shipping through Guinea Bissau.
We'd asked if we could accompany him on a drugs patrol. He said he'd try to find a boat.
It's taken an entire day to get to this point - finally our promised embed with the Navy of the Republic of Guinea Bissau.
The delay down to the fact that there wasn't any fuel for the boat. Our Captain none other the Head of the Navy himself, or the Chef d'Armada as he's known here. And his armada? Well, that white one over there. That's it.
As we clambered over the rusting hulks of dead patrol boats, the Admiral complained there was no way his navy could give chase to Colombian narco-traffickers with their Miami-vice style speed boats. We need fast boats too, he said.
Allegations have been made to Channel 4 News that the military moves drugs around for the traffickers.
We set off on possibly the first narco-patrol by the Bissau Navy in years - all laid on for our benefit.
Tonight, Mario Sa Gomez remains in hiding. He doesn't trust government assurances that he'd be protected.
Perfect for trafficking
Guinea Bissau has 400 miles of coastline, with rivers and mangroves and 90 islands. Perfect for drugs trafficking, the Admiral told me.
I raised Mario Sa Gomes's accusations from his radio broadcast.
José Americo Bubu Na Tchutu, head of Guinea Bissau Navy, said: "As a military man, I'm not surprised at being accused of drugs trafficking. I was one of those who helped give freedom and democracy to the people of Guinea Bissau, so now theyre free to say what they want.
"You can tell the truth - or you can tell lies about your enemies. As a citizen of Guinea Bissau, I just sit there waiting for their evidence. Whether today, tomorrow or in a thousand years time, I will never be a drugs trafficker."
Later, off camera, the Admiral - jailed once before for allegedly plotting a coup - said those making allegations against the military were inviting another civil war.
