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12 Things You Didn’t Know About Meth Traffic And Production In Africa

12 Things You Didn’t Know About Meth Traffic And Production In Africa

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West Africa is becoming an established route for trafficking methamphetamines — street names: meth, tik, tuk tuk, crystal, straws, globes, ice and crystal.

The highly addictive synthetic drug is destined for South and East Asia via South Africa or Europe, the U.N. reports in a newly released World Drugs Report 2015.

Africa was rarely mentioned in the world’s drug trade before 2002, a minor player as a transit region for heroin reaching Europe, according to the U.N.’s Office on Drugs & Crime. East Africa is now a key heroin-smuggling hub.

Since 2010, Africa is increasingly prominent in drug production and smuggling, with Tanzania appearing to get the most mentions among East African countries. Kenya, Ethiopia, and Uganda are also emerging as key transit hubs, the report says.

Anyone who has seen the TV series “Breaking Bad” knows meth can be made with a simple understanding of chemistry and basic equipment.

Africa is breaking bad. Here are 12 things you didn’t know about meth traffic and production in Africa.

Sources: WorldPoliticsReviewBusinessInsiderMail&Guardian, DrugAbuse.gov, FoxNews, AlJazeera.

Methylamphetamine, desoxyephedrine, Crystal Meth (or just meth) a man-made stimulant drug. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)
Methylamphetamine, desoxyephedrine, crystal meth or just meth is a man-made stimulant drug. Photo: Getty

What is methamphetamine?

Methamphetamine or meth is a highly addictive stimulant that affects the central nervous system. Used originally in nasal decongestants and bronchial inhalers, it causes talkativeness, decreased appetite, and a sense of euphoria. It differs from amphetamine in that it’s more potent — comparable doses get into the brain more effectively. It also has more harmful and longer-lasting effects on the central nervous system. These make it a drug that’s easily abused.

Long-term effects include weight loss, severe tooth decay, tooth loss (“meth mouth”) and skin sores — often the result of scratching from an imagined sensation of insects crawling under the skin.

In addition to being addicted to methamphetamine, chronic abusers may have extreme anxiety, confusion, insomnia, mood disturbances, and violent behavior. They also may display paranoia, visual and auditory hallucinations, and delusions.

Meth is smoked, swallowed, snorted or injected by hundreds of thousands of users in the U.S. and around the world. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says meth has grown more popular in East and Southeast Asia because it’s easier to come by than before.

Source: DrubAbuse.gov, FoxNews, AlJazeera.

SHAN STATE, MYANMAR - 2013/11/02: A drug addict prepares to smoke a yabaa tablet (a name from Thai language for methamphetamine) in a Palaung area village. The whole Palaung area is plagued by the scourge of addiction to drugs such as opium, heroin and yabaa (methamphetamine). In some villages, addiction rate can reach 90% within the male population. (Photo by Thierry Falise/LightRocket via Getty Images)
An addict prepares to smoke a yabaa tablet (Thai for meth). Photo: Thierry Falise/Getty

Climate not an issue in meth production

Climate dictates where cocaine, heroin or hashish are produced, but there are no such constraints on meth, BusinessInsuder reports. The synthetic drug is derived from ephedrine or pseudoephedrine, two medicines used to treat ailments ranging from asthma to nasal decongestion.

Source: BusinessInsider

A glass Meth Pipe for inhaling Methamphetamine (also called methylamphetamine, desoxyephedrine, Crystal Meth (or just meth) a man-made stimulant drug. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)
Glass meth pipe. Photo: Getty

Meth could be paying for political campaigns in Nigeria

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo told Reuters that political leaders needed to wake up to the fact the region had become a meth producer. Nigerian authorities discovered 10 meth labs since 2010.

Obasanjo now heads the West African Commission on Drugs and said the production of meth in the region was raising the threat of drug-fueled instability.

“It is now affecting our politics because money earned from drugs is going into politics,” he said. “You have drug barons who are now sponsoring politicians, or who (are) in fact going into politics themselves.”

Source: BusinessInsider

Cape Town, SOUTH AFRICA: The receptionist at the Cape Town Drug Counselling Centre answers the telephone, 29 January 2007, while on the window, next to her are testing kits for various drugs, including crystal meth, known colloquially as "tik", and marijuana. Grant Jardine, director of the center, said tik was fast becoming the favored drug of young people, being comparatively cheap and accessible. Statistics from South Africa's Medical Research Council (MRC) show that 46 percent of patients seeking drug treatment in Cape Town from January to June last year were tik users, compared to 0.7 percent four years earlier.    AFP PHOTO / RODGER BOSCH (Photo credit should read RODGER BOSCH/AFP/Getty Images)
A Cape Town Drug Counselling Centre. Meth is known loally as “tik.” Photo: Rodger Bosch/Getty

Meth linked to tourism

Meth has been linked to African tourism industries, and Italy in particular appears to be significantly affected.

Guinea-Bissau has grown notorious as a narco-state, with drug cartels buying off politicians and virtually taking over government institutions, funding elections and using Bissau airport as a transit hub without fear of punishment.

African trafficking routes are evolving in ways unique to the type of drug being smuggled.

Synthetic drugs including meth, e ecstasy, and amphetamine are thought to be produced all over the world, and significant increases in seizures over the past five years suggest new routes are being created to connect regional markets.

“West Africa in particular appears to have become an established source of methamphetamine trafficked to East and Southeast Asia via South Africa or Europe,” a report said.

In December 2013, an Austrian woman and German man were arrested in Jakarta after flying in from Dakar with meth in their luggage, local media reported.

Source: Mail&Guardian, BusinessInsider

MULNOMAH COUNTY, OR: *** EXCLUSIVE *** Left image taken in February 2005 and right image taken in December 2005. Subject was a user of Methamphetamines. These shocking before and after images reveal in stark and simple terms the cost drug addiction takes on the human face. Released in the hope that they will make kids think twice about ever touching drugs the pictures show how addicts have lost teeth and scratched their skin to the bone. Part of a police programme called 'Drugs to Mugs', the photographs show the first arrest of a drug user partnered up with a picture taken in some cases only three months later. Put together by the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office in the US state of Oregon, Drugs to Mugs is the follow up to the controversial 2004 'Faces of Meth' release which highlighted the effects of methamphetamine use. (Photo by Multnomah County Sheriff's Office / Barcroft USA / Getty Images)
U.S. police use before-and-after images of addicts to deter teens from using drugs in a program,”‘Drugs to Mugs. Photo: Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office/Getty

Meth ingredients are easy to get in West Africa

One reason West Africa is a good place for meth production, say law enforcement officials, is the region’s poor control on imports of meth ingredients. They’re imported legally to use in products such as cold medicine, and can easily adapted and turned into meth by boiling, filtering and mixing with other chemicals.

Source: BusinessInsider

WIESBADEN, GERMANY - NOVEMBER 13:  Members of the Bundeskriminalamt German law enforcement agency (BKA), the Federal Criminal Office, display portions of 2.9 tonnes of recently-confiscated chlorephedrin, one of the main ingredients used to manufacture methamphetamine, also called crystal meth, at a press conference on November 13, 2014 in Wiesbaden, Germany. Police from Saxony, Thuringia and the Czech Republic broke a crystal meth manufacturing ring earlier this month and confiscated the haul, which is enough to produce 2.3 tonnes of crystal meth, and also made at least 16 arrests, including the ring leader, a 32-year-old pharmaceuticals retailer from Leipzig. Crystal meth has evolved into a major scourge in the Czech-German border region and is becoming a popular drug in cities deeper inside Germany.  (Photo by Hannelore Foerster/Getty Images)
German law enforcement displays parts of 2.9 tonnes of confiscated chlorephedrin, one of the main ingredients used to make meth. Photo: Hannelore Foerster/Getty

Nigeria dominates meth production in West Africa

Home to Africa’s largest population and some of the region’s most established criminal gangs, Nigeria dominates meth production in West Africa, drugs experts say.

Those gangs have connections with experienced Latin American “cooks,” such as three Bolivians detained in a lab raid. But Nigerian gangs have learned to run the trade themselves, establishing global networks to distribute the finished product.

Nigerian gangs use elaborate networks of human mules to move the drugs, say law enforcement officials. Some have started hiring Europeans with clean passports who are less likely to create suspicion when traveling to Asia.

Source: FoxNews, BusinessInsider

NEW TOWN, ND - AUGUST 13:   Native american Rachelle Baker, 29, has the names of her two young children tattooed on her arms to cover up needle scars from being addictied to heroin and meth on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in New Town, ND on August 13, 2014.   She's clean now and hopes to stay that way.  Fort Berthold is the epicenter of the fracking and oil boom where many tribal members finacially benefit from fracking leases and oil royalties.   With the money as also come a dramatic increase in crime in the form of meth and heroin use and trafficking, drunk driving, assaults and domestic violence.  Baker is looking at a 56-month jail term for using and selling drugs and hopes to regain full custody of her children when it's all over.  She believes the reservation could benefit from a methadone clinic and a narcotics anonymous group. (Photo by Linda Davidson / TWP)
Native American Rachelle Baker has the names of her children tattooed on her arms to cover up needle scars from heroin and meth addiction. She’s clean now. Photo:  Linda Davidson/TWP/Getty
Bags of methamphetamine pills seized by the Thai narcotic police department are seen on display before being incinerated in Ayutthaya on September 17, 2011. Yingluck Shinawatra has announced the government will begin an urgent anti-drugs campaign.  AFP PHOTO / Nicolas ASFOURI (Photo credit should read NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/Getty Images)
Bags of meth pills seized by Thai police. Photo: Nicolas Asfouri/Getty

Mexican Sinaloa cartel needs new source of revenue

Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman made a spectacular escape this month from a maximum-security Mexican prison. The Sinaloa cartel seems to have compensated for setbacks in the drug industry with new routes and new markets, including through West Africa and to the Persian Gulf.

Events in the U.S. have affected the Sinaloa cartel. Legalization of marijuana in parts of the U.S. cut into its revenue. With a substantial decrease in wholesale prices—from $100 per kilogram to less than $25 in the past five years—marijuana production in the Sinaloa region has dropped, The Washington Post reported.

Source: WorldPoliticsReview

CAVITE, PHILIPPINES - 2015/02/06: Confiscated drugs and paraphernalias.  An alleged grandson of a Congressman in Dasmarinas, Cavite was arrested by National Bureau of Investigation during their pot session in their house with his three friends. Six bags of methamphetamine were confiscated by the agents of NBI. According to statistics, there are 1.2 million drug users in the Philippines. (Photo by Sherbien Dacalanio/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Confiscated drug paraphernalia, Philippines. Photo: Sherbien Dacalanio/Getty

Mexican cartels are moving to West Africa

One sign of the growing importance of West Africa is the arrival of Latin American producers, including Mexicans. Mexican drug gangs play a central role in the meth industry in North America. Mexicans have helped set up clandestine labs – known as “clan labs” – in Nigeria, said Rusty Payne, a spokesman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

“They are not just mom and pop labs, they are big labs,” Payne said. “Mexicans aren’t going to come over and train (people) unless they are dealing in large amounts.”

Source: FoxNews, BusinessInsider

Stephen Henri Lubbe (centre R) of South Africa attends a press conference as evidence is placed in front of him at the customs office in Denpasar on Bali island on February 14, 2014. Lubbe was arrested on February 9 carrying 1540 grams of methamphetamine hidden in his luggage at Bali International Airport in Indonesia. AFP  PHOTO / SONNY TUMBELAKA        (Photo credit should read SONNY TUMBELAKA/AFP/Getty Images)
South African Stephen Lubbe, center, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for carrying 1,540 grams of meth in his luggage at Bali International Airport, Indonesia. Photo: Sonny Tumbelaka/Getty

 

How the African drug market evolved in recent years

Africa’s place in the synthetic drug market was, until recent years, limited to South Africa, which has a domestic market and feeds the global supply chain.

The surge in production elsewhere on the continent is part of a bigger burgeoning global amphetamine-type market. The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime says annual meth seizures more than doubled between 2010 and 2012.

The first sign that synthetic drugs were being produced in West Africa came in 2009 when chemicals including MDP-2-P, used to make ecstasy, were found at a  Guinea lab. The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime estimates some $100 million worth of ecstasy could have been produced from the what was found there.

A Nigerian expelled from China was arrested in 2009 with a manual on how to cook meth, said Ahmadu Giade, head of Nigeria’s National Drug Law Enforcement Agency.

“Nigeria at that time wasn’t prepared for that type of drug because we knew nothing about it,” Giade told Reuters. He sent a team to South Africa to investigate how police there handled meth labs.

In 2010, Nigerian agents stumbled across a meth lab in a place called Monkey Village. Sunday Drambi Ziramgey, commander of a National Drug Law Enforcement Agency team, was one of the first on the scene. He described a bungalow where each of the four rooms housed a different stage of the cooking process. In the kitchen, they found cooking pots, burners and compressing machines. A web of light bulbs had been strung up to dry the meth.

A 2010 U.S. investigation into cocaine smuggling in Liberia also uncovered plans to produce meth in the country for shipment to the U.S. and Japan. A 2011 report by Nigerian law enforcement officials, seen by Reuters, details a step-by-step guide for meth production and distribution taken from a Nigerian deported from China. The guide included contacts in Ghana, Iran, Thailand and China who would help find couriers and buyers for meth.

A senior Drug Enforcement Agency official listed Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana and Guinea-Bissau as possible locations for meth labs.

Source: BusinessInsider

An Australian Customs officer (C) and a Australian Federal Police officer (R) inspect one of the 27 kayaks seized after Australian authorities found Aus$180 million (US$162 million) of methamphetamine stashed in a consignment of kayaks from China, in Sydney on February 12, 2014.  Four Taiwanese nationals were arrested afte the 183-kilogramme (402-pound) haul was discovered during a joint Australian Federal Police and Customs and Border Protection Service operation at Sydney's container port.  AFP PHOTO / William WEST        (Photo credit should read WILLIAM WEST/AFP/Getty Images)
Australian customs officers found $162 million US of meth stashed in a consignment of kayaks from China. Photo: William West/Getty

Potential profits are huge

It costs about $1,500 to produce one kilogram (about 2 pounds) of meth in West Africa, but a kilogram of meth sells for around $150,000 in Asian countries such as Japan.

Source: FoxNews

"I got a smile that kills," said Don Lance of his three decades using meth and other drugs. After getting off drugs two years ago and winning a dream home in a contest, his life is looking up. (Beau Cabell/Macon Telegraph/MCT via Getty Images)
“I got a smile that kills,” said Don Lance of his three decades using meth. He won a home in a contest. Photo: Beau Cabell/Getty

Advantages of making meth in Africa

Mame Seydou Ndour, Senegal’s anti-drug lord, said making meth across the region had multiple advantages. “The transport cost is reduced. There is less risk in Africa. Labor is cheaper here too – with poverty there are plenty of people who are ready to get involved,” he said.

Source: BusinessInsider

 U.S. police use before-and-after images of addicts to deter teens from using drugs in a program,"'Drugs to Mugs. Photo: Multnomah County Sheriff's Office/Getty
U.S. police use before-and-after images of addicts to deter teens from using drugs in a program,”‘Drugs to Mugs. Photo: Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office/Getty

Still far from Mexican production levels

West African meth production is still far below levels in Mexico, where officials seized 19 tonnes in 2014 and raided a string of so-called super labs. But local groups in West Africa are beginning to tap lucrative markets in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Japan.

Source: BusinessInsider