SENEGAL NAVY SEIZES $210m COCAINE

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The Senegalese navy has seized three tonnes of cocaine worth at least $210 million from a seven-crew boat moored off the coast, the force said on Saturday.

An offshore patrol vessel intercepted the boat on Thursday “in Senegal’s southern waters, 425 kilometres (265 miles) from the coast”, the navy said on X, formerly Twitter.

The boat and seven people on board were transferred on Saturday to a naval base in the capital, Dakar, the navy said, without giving details of the crew’s identities.

“The seizure is worth at least 126 billion CFA francs ($210 million),” it added.

Senegal’s armed forces said on November 28 they had impounded a separate stash of nearly three tonnes of cocaine from on a 10-crew vessel moored off the coast.

The two operations bring to six tonnes the quantity of the class A drug seized by the West African country in fewer than three weeks.

In January, the navy found more than 800 kilogrammes (1,760 pounds) of cocaine on a vessel moored close to Dakar.

West and Central Africa were once considered transit route for drugs trafficked from Latin America to Europe.

The regions have now become major centres of drug use in their own right, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

AFP