The Brazil-Africa Narco Nexus

The vicious drug cartels in Colombia and Mexico regularly make headlines, but there has been remarkably less public attention to the growing role of Brazil—and Brazilian organized crime—as a major player in the global trade in illicit narcotics.

Expanding links between Brazilian criminal groups and their counterparts in West Africa, easy access to European ports and rampant corruption have created an ideal jumping-off place for Latin American contraband destined for Europe and Asia and fuel Brazil’s role as a bridge for drug trafficking.

Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea, Guinea- Bissau, Nigeria, and South Africa are now top transshipment points for Latin American drugs bound for Europe and beyond. This development seems to have overtaken the close connection with Russia, which in the 1990s was the main link for Colombian cocaine. Much of the traffic has gone by sea, but law enforcement authorities note an increasing use of air shipments. Between 30 and 100 tons of Latin American cocaine annually are smuggled north to Europe along African air routes.

The drug seizure statistics are staggering. According to figures provided by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the number of seizure cases involving Brazil as a transit country increased tenfold in the past four years, from 25 tons in 2005 to 260 tons in 2009. Only 15 percent of South America’s cocaine destined for the U.S. and Europe travels through Brazil, but the link with West Africa suggests the volume of drugs entering Brazil is likely to grow.

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Nancy Brune is a senior policy analyst at Sandia Corporation. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Sandia Corporation.