West Africa has become one of the world's main corridors for cocaine trafficking, with about 30 percent of the cocaine consumed in Europe in 2025 estimated to have passed through the region, according to a new report.

The findings, from the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), were published in March and have been highlighted in a new investigation by the AFP news agency. They describe a trade that has grown steadily in scale and sophistication, turning a region once seen mainly as a transit point into a central link between producers in South America and buyers in Europe.

A four-tonne seizure in Liberia

The scale of the trade was laid bare in July, when police in Liberia seized four tonnes of cocaine valued at $317 million. Dozens of packages were piled up after the raid, in what has become one of the largest drug hauls in the country's history.

Liberia's President Joseph Boakai described drug trafficking as "one of the greatest threats" facing the country in a national address in August, after several large seizures. "Drugs are destroying young lives, weakening families, fuelling violence," he warned.

The political fallout has reached the top of Liberian public life. Following the major drugs busts, former Liberian vice president Jewel Howard-Taylor was arrested for alleged involvement in an international drug trafficking network.

A region-wide problem

But Liberia is by no means unique. The drugs trade now touches countries across West Africa, from the Atlantic coast to the Sahel.

In neighbouring Sierra Leone, one of Europe's most wanted cocaine traffickers, the convicted fugitive Dutchman Jos Leijdekkers, is operating with apparent support from the highest echelons of power, according to law enforcement, local testimonies and court documents gathered by AFP.

"All the states in west Africa are vulnerable to cocaine trafficking," Lucia Bird, west Africa director at GI-TOC, told AFP. "The region is perfectly positioned between the cultivation areas in Latin America and consumption markets, particularly in Europe," she said.

The true scale of the trafficking remains unknown. Because the trade is illegal, it is difficult to quantify, and seizure figures alone are not a reliable measure of how much cocaine is moving through the region.

Why traffickers choose the maritime route

The West Africa route is largely maritime, and several factors have made it more attractive to traffickers in recent years. Improvements to port infrastructure and road networks have made the region's ports increasingly well-connected hubs.

Although moving drugs through West Africa takes longer and costs more than more direct routes, "the risk of having your product seized is lower", Bird told AFP. As Europe has tightened its controls on ships arriving from South America, cargoes originating in West Africa have attracted less scrutiny from European customs.

That advantage may be fading. With West Africa increasingly seen as high-risk, Bird said perceptions and security measures were starting to change.

Corruption and drugs spilling onto local streets

The report warns that the trade is doing damage well beyond the movement of drugs. As in other regions, cocaine trafficking fuels corruption among local elites and political decision-makers, with "profound implications for governance and devastating effects on the provision of public services and the socio-economic development of states", the GI-TOC report said.

There is also an overspill from the bulk trade onto the domestic market. Smaller dealers and traffickers are sometimes paid in kind, in cocaine, but lack the channels to resell it in Europe. The drug is then dumped on the local market and sold at affordable prices.

That has led to "an increase in the consumption of powdered cocaine, and, to a much greater extent, crack, over the past five years", according to the report. Three countries stand out for the particularly low price of cocaine on the local market: Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone and Mali.

The findings underline how a trade built to serve European demand is now reshaping the countries it passes through, straining their institutions, their politics and their public health.

Sources: NNU and Warri Aproko