Senegal Navy Seizes $210 Million Worth Of Cocaine

Three tonnes of cocaine valued at least $210 million were seized from a seven-crew boat that was moored off the coast by the Senegalese navy.

Naija News reports that the navy announced in a statement on its official X handle on Saturday that the boat was intercepted on Thursday “in Senegal’s southern waters, 425 kilometres (265 miles) from the coast” by an offshore patrol vessel.

The navy claimed that the boat and its seven occupants were moved on Saturday to a naval facility in Dakar, the country’s capital, without disclosing the crew’s identities.

“The seizure is worth at least 126 billion CFA francs ($210 million),” the statement said.

Recall that the military in Senegal said on November 28 that they had seized a different cache of almost three tons of cocaine from a ten-person ship that was anchored off the coast.

The combined amount of class A drugs that the West African nation has taken in less than three weeks from the two operations is now six tonnes.

More than 800 kilogrammes (1,760 pounds) of cocaine were discovered by the navy in January on a ship that was anchored near Dakar.

It is widely claimed that narcotics were transported from Latin America to Europe via West and Central Africa. However, the regions have now become major centres of drug use in their own right, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.