From Transit Corridor to Criminal Infrastructure: The Institutionalisation of West Africa in the Transatlantic Cocaine Supply Chain
This article argues that West Africa's role in the transatlantic cocaine trade is best understood not merely as a geographic transit zone or a result of state weakness, but as a durable "criminal-infrastructural institutionalisation" where illicit networks embed themselves locally and adaptively to maintain supply chain connectivity despite enforcement pressures, necessitating a shift in policy from route interdiction to targeting the underlying brokerage and financial mechanisms.
Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer
Imagine a global supply chain not for cars or coffee, but for an illegal drug. For decades, experts have understood this trade as a simple line: the drug is made in one place, moved through a middle ground, and sold in another. The middle ground was usually seen as just a hallway—a passive space where the product waited briefly before moving on. If the hallway was blocked, the traffickers would simply find a different door. But what if the hallway itself became a permanent, essential part of the factory? What if the place where the drug just passed through began to develop its own specialized jobs, its own local helpers, and its own ability to rebuild itself when attacked? This is the puzzle that researchers in the field of organized crime have been trying to solve regarding West Africa. The region does not grow the drug, nor is it the final destination for the buyers in Europe, yet it has become a stubborn, recurring hub in the flow of cocaine. Understanding how a place can transform from a temporary stopover into a permanent, self-sustaining node in a criminal network is crucial. It changes how governments and police should fight these crimes, shifting the focus from simply catching a single shipment to dismantling the entire system that allows the trade to survive and adapt.
A new study by Idris Mohammad Sanusi Said, a researcher at Universitas Islam Negeri K.H. Abdurrahman Wahid Pekalongan, tackles this question by proposing a new way to look at these criminal networks. The author argues that West Africa has undergone what he calls "criminal-infrastructural institutionalisation." This is a mouthful, but the idea is straightforward: it describes the process where a territory stops being just a transit point and becomes a deeply embedded, functional part of the supply chain. Instead of just passing through, the region begins to perform specific, repeatable jobs like staging areas for ships, transfer points for cargo, and hubs for local brokers. Crucially, this system is so well-established that if police shut down one route, the network does not collapse; it simply rebuilds the same function in a slightly different way, using the same local connections. The study suggests that this is not because the region is weak or because a single criminal gang is incredibly tough, but because the environment itself has become a reusable resource for the trade.
To prove this, the researcher did not rely on broad theories or vague statistics about corruption. Instead, he acted like a historian, piecing together a timeline of specific events, court cases, and police operations in Guinea-Bissau, a small coastal nation in West Africa. He chose this country as a "most-likely case," meaning it was the place where the evidence for this deep local connection was expected to be the strongest and most visible. The study focused on four key signs that a region has become institutionalized: does the drug traffic happen repeatedly over time? Does it involve different types of jobs, not just moving boxes? Are there specific, named relationships between foreign traffickers and local people? And if a route is blocked, does the system find a way to keep the same function alive elsewhere?
The evidence gathered from Guinea-Bissau paints a clear picture of all four signs. The researcher looked at two major police operations, named CARAPAU and NAVARA, which occurred six months apart in 2019. In the first operation, police seized nearly 800 kilograms of cocaine hidden in a truck. In the second, they seized nearly 2,000 kilograms near a different coastal village. These were not the same event repeated; they were distinct operations involving different people, different hiding spots, and different methods. This proved the first sign: recurrence. The trade was not a one-off accident; it was happening again and again. Furthermore, the study found that the region was not just a single road. The cocaine was being moved in different ways: some was transferred from ships to other ships at sea, some was flown in by couriers, and some was moved overland by trucks. This mix of roles showed functional differentiation, meaning the region had developed a toolkit of different logistical jobs rather than just being a single corridor.
The most compelling evidence came from looking at the people involved. In the NAVARA operation, police arrested a group that included citizens of Guinea-Bissau, Colombia, and Mali. This mix of nationalities indicated that the foreign drug traffickers were not just driving through; they were working with local partners who knew the terrain, the ports, and the people. This is what the study calls local embedding. It is not enough to say a country is corrupt; the researcher needed proof of specific, operational partnerships. That proof came in April 2020, when a court in Guinea-Bissau convicted twelve people, including locals and foreigners, for drug smuggling, money laundering, and even financing terrorism. The fact that the local courts could successfully prosecute a complex, multinational network showed that the criminal activity was deeply woven into the local fabric, yet the state was also capable of acting against it. This specific legal victory confirmed that the relationship between the traffickers and the locals was a tangible, documented reality, not just a theory.
Finally, the study examined what happened when the pressure was applied. After the 2019 seizures, there was a period where fewer drugs were caught in Guinea-Bissau. A simple explanation might be that the trade had stopped. However, the researcher found that the trade had not vanished; it had moved. Reports indicated that the cocaine was being routed through neighboring countries like Guinea and other ports along the coast. When the pressure eased, the large seizures returned to Guinea-Bissau. This demonstrated adaptive continuity. The function of moving the drug had not disappeared; it had simply shifted location and then returned, proving that the underlying system was resilient and capable of rebuilding itself. The study argues that this ability to adapt is what makes the region an "infrastructure" rather than just a "corridor."
The researcher explicitly rules out several other common explanations for why this is happening. It is not simply because of geography; if location were the only factor, every country with a similar coastline would look the same, but the specific patterns of arrests and convictions were unique to Guinea-Bissau in the data. It is not just because the government is weak or "captured" by criminals; the successful 2020 prosecution showed that the state institutions were functioning and could work against the network, even while the network operated alongside them. It is also not just about one tough criminal organization surviving; the arrests involved different nationalities and groups over time, suggesting that the place itself is the durable asset, not just a specific gang. The study concludes that the region has become a permanent, adaptable part of the global drug trade because it offers a set of reusable services—local knowledge, specific routes, and broker relationships—that make it cheaper and easier for traffickers to operate there, regardless of which specific group is in charge.
This finding has a significant impact on how we think about stopping these crimes. If the problem is just a route, then blocking that route should work. But if the problem is an infrastructure, blocking one path just forces the system to rebuild the same function elsewhere. The study suggests that police and policymakers need to stop focusing only on seizing the drugs or catching the drivers. Instead, they need to target the relationships that make the system work. This means investigating the local brokers, the money launderers, and the specific connections between foreign traffickers and local actors, rather than just treating each seizure as an isolated event. The success of the Guinea-Bissau courts in prosecuting a multinational network offers a model for this approach: by charging people with money laundering and terrorism financing alongside drug crimes, they attacked the financial and relational infrastructure that allowed the trade to survive. The study does not claim to have solved the problem or stopped the trade, but it provides a clearer map of the terrain. It shows that in the fight against transnational crime, the enemy is not just a moving target, but a system that has learned to root itself in the soil of the places it passes through.
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