Report: Criminal groups from the Balkans are expanding West Africa's role in the cocaine trade

2025-09-02 13:49:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Report: Criminal groups from the Balkans are expanding West Africa's role

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Criminal groups from the Western Balkans, which are among the main cocaine traffickers in Europe, are consolidating their presence in West Africa, transforming the region into an increasingly important link in the smuggling route from Latin America to the European Union, a new report says.

The growing demand for cocaine in Europe, together with increased controls on direct routes from Latin America and the significant expansion of seaports in West Africa, has pushed smugglers for several years to increase traffic through Senegal, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde.

But the influence of Albanian and Slavic-speaking networks in the region has so far been little understood.

Researchers from the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), in a report published on Tuesday, said that these groups have grown significantly in global importance and are now among the largest criminal networks in the cocaine trade in Europe.

They have exploited alliances in the region with Dutch criminal groups, and especially with the Brazilian organization Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC), to deepen control over the supply chain.

"The alliance between groups from the Western Balkans and the PCC is perhaps the most important partnership currently for the introduction of cocaine into Europe," said Sasha Djirgjevic, one of the authors and a senior analyst at GI-TOC.

The report, partly supported by the British government, stresses that more intercontinental cooperation is needed between law enforcement agencies, port authorities and other actors to combat these ever-expanding drug routes.

He also calls for broader data collection and smarter targeting of intermediaries in this trade.

“These groups are among the most sophisticated in the world – they are not peripheral players,” said Lucia Bird Ruiz-Benitez de Lugo, director of the Observatory of Illicit Economies in West Africa at GI-TOC.

"These major global actors are linked to violence in Europe, and as increasingly sophisticated and violent criminal networks penetrate West Africa, this poses a serious risk to stability and security."/ Rel