Cocaine central

President Vieira's feeble regime is being almost overwhelmed by the drugs trade

Cocaine has been, after oil, West Africa's highest value export to Europe in recent months, according to regional police reports. The coca which forms the basis of the drug is not grown there but the networks between Colombian and Venezuelan drug barons and their West African business partners have established complex and lucrative transhipment operations along West Africa's seaboard. If Interpol gets enough information to embarrass the local authorities into action, soldiers and police announce a major sweep and much of the consignment mysteriously disappears.

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