Islamic militants boosting role in drug trade

The sea lanes of the South Atlantic have become a favored route for drug traffickers carrying narcotics from Latin America to West and North Africa, where al Qaeda-related groups are increasingly involved in transporting the drugs to Europe, intelligence officials and counternarcotics specialists say.

A Middle Eastern intelligence official said his agency has picked up "very worrisome reports" of rapidly growing cooperation between Islamic militants operating in North and West Africa and drug lords in Latin America. With U.S. attention focused on the Caribbean and Africans lacking the means to police their shores, the vast sea lanes of the South Atlantic are wide open to illegal navigation, the official said.

"The South Atlantic has become a no-man's sea," said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity owing to the nature of his work.

"The Colombians have shifted their focus from sending cocaine through the Caribbean, and they saw an opportunity to sell cocaine in Europe, transshipping it through the South Atlantic from Venezuela and then to Africa, through Spain and into Europe," DEA spokesman Michael Sanders told The Washington Times. "That's what we're seeing. It's just a new location. That's the route they're taking, for the most part."

The Washington Times reported in March that Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Lebanese Shi'ite group, is deeply involved in the drug trade. Increasingly, however, Sunni groups linked to al Qaeda are also dealing in narcotics to finance their organizations, specialists say.

"It's a weapon against the infidels in the West," said Chris Brown, a senior research associate at the Potomac Institute outside Washington. "As long as the target of the drug trade is the infidels, they have no problem doing it."

AND,

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/mali/6585439/Boeing-transporting-cocaine-from-South-America-to-Africa-crashes.html
Boeing transporting cocaine from South America to Africa crashes

A Boeing being used to haul cocaine crashed in Mali this month, the first time the United Nations has heard of such a large plane moving drugs from South America to Africa, a UN official said on Monday.
Published: 10:41PM GMT 16 Nov 2009
"A Boeing coming from Venezuela landed on a makeshift landing strip some nine miles from Gao and unloaded cocaine and other illegal substances," Alexandre Schmidt of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) told journalists in Dakar.
"The plane wanted to take off but crashed on November 5th," he added.
In recent years West Africa has become an important transit point for South American cocaine being smuggled to European markets, and according to Schmidt there are also signs that the region is now moving into producing drugs.
As for the Boeing, it is not clear how much cocaine was on board but Mr Schmidt explained a Boeing could carry at least 10 tonnes of cocaine. It was also unclear what model the Boeing was.
The drugs have not yet been recovered and the international police organisation Interpol is carrying out an investigation.

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