Traffics and transnational Criminality in Africa

GRIP’s research aim to shed light on the dynamics and current evolutions of the main traffics which happen in West Africa, i.e. organised and transnational, of goods and of human beings. 

West Africa has always had trade routes but recently these ones have started to be taken again. Drugs, weapons and human beings are illicitly traded. Since the 2000s’, cocaine trafficking from South America has increased in West Africa, especially towards European networks. Yet, traffic issues are linked with transnational criminality per se. The latter is made easier by the weakness of the States, the porous borders – which are hard to manage when they are next to the desert- and extreme poverty. Often, traffics – of drugs, arms, human beings - are interdependent and enable armed groups to finance themselves.

GRIP’s research aim to shed light on the dynamics and current evolutions of the main traffics which happen in West Africa, i.e. organised and transnational, of goods and of human beings.