Atlantic connections - The PCC and the Brazil-West Africa cocaine trade

Résumé 0

Cocaine trafficking through West Africa, following the well-established route from Latin America to the European consumer market, appears to be in a phase of sharp growth.1 Since 2016, the majority of consignments transiting West Africa begin their journey in Brazil. The Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) – the largest criminal organization in Brazil – is pivotal to understanding Brazil’s newfound importance for cocaine in West Africa. Cocaine trafficking between Brazil and West Africa stretches back at least to the 1980s, but as cultivation in Latin America continues to increase and consumption in Europe has grown, more and more cocaine is being moved along this path.2 In 2018, only one West African country – Senegal – was in the top 10 destinations for cocaine seized in Brazilian ports; by 2019, after a bumper year of seizures in Brazil, Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone had also pushed their way onto the list.3 Cultivation in Latin America reached record levels in 2021, and in the following year an unprecedented 24 tonnes were seized across West Africa.4 In this report, we focus on the flow of cocaine between Brazil and West Africa, which largely supplies the lucrative European consumer market, and in particular on the role of the PCC, which straddles various illicit supply chains.5 Brazil operates as a transit point in cocaine value chains, since it does not produce the raw coca plants. Cocaine is imported – either in the form of a crude base paste extracted from coca leaves or as processed cocaine hydrochloride – from producers in Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela and Colombia, or from other transit countries such as Paraguay. The paste is consumed in the Brazilian domestic market in different forms and mixtures, while most of the imported cocaine hydrochloride is exported to other continents via Brazilian seaports and airports. Criminal networks exploit these official trade channels to move large amounts of cocaine concealed within the enormous flow of legal commodities to other continents. Brazil’s highly developed maritime, air and road infrastructure has given it a comparative advantage over its neighbours and it now occupies a pivotal position as a major logistical hub in international trafficking routes. The Port of Santos in São Paulo state is one of the largest in the world – handling 4.2 million containers in 2020 – far outstripping its South American peers.