By Alfred Koroma
Customs officers in Burkina Faso have last week confiscated cocaine worth more than $11.5 million believed to have come from Sierra Leone, Reuters report.
According to Reuters, the 115 kilograms cocaine was intercepted on Thursday along the main road linking Burkina Faso’s southwestern city of Bobo to the capital of Ouagadougou, hidden in a vehicle with a foreign plate pretending to transport manioc flower.
The vehicle which was heading to Ghana is reported to have loaded in Sierra Leone and drove through Guinea and Mali before crossing into Burkina Faso. A customs spokesman told Reuters that all smugglers on board the vehicle escaped from the scene and no arrests have been made.
Cocaine hauls have become increasingly common in West Africa, a region often used as a transit route for illegal drugs enroute from South America to Europe. In January, Niger confiscated more than 200 kilograms of cocaine from a truck, while Ivory Coast seized a record of more than 2 tonnes of pure cocaine last month, Reuters says, reporting that authorities in Gambia and Senegal have also made significant hauls in recent months.
