About three tonnes of pure cocaine were taken from a ship that the Senegalese navy patrol boat intercepted Tuesday 150 kilometres (93.21 miles) off the coast, the navy said in a statement.
According to the statement, the boat and its belongings were escorted to Dakar’s Admiral Faye Gassama Naval Base and given to the appropriate authorities.
Images shared by the navy on social media platform X featured the Ville d’Abidjan, a ship with a rusty hull, docked, along with numerous suitcase-sized bundles wrapped in bright plastic and police officers inspecting a white substance that appeared to have been taken from the haul. An announcement on X stated that 2.975 tonnes of pure cocaine were found in the seized cargo, a senior military official told the French news agency AFP.
Drug traffickers frequently use West African nations as a hub for shipping cocaine from South America to Europe.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) stated in its annual World Drug Report in June that cocaine bush cultivation and total cocaine production reached record highs in 2021, the most recent year for which data is available, and that the number of cocaine users worldwide, estimated at 22 million that same year, is growing steadily. According to UNODC, West and Central Africa, once thought to be only a transit region for drugs made in Latin America, are now important regions for drug consumption.
