Cocaine Confidential

by Clarkson, Wensley

  Law enforcement agents first became aware of the Air Cocaine flights in November 2009, when a burned-out Boeing 727 was found in the desert in the African nation of Mali. Coke smugglers had flown it in from Venezuela, unloaded the aircraft and then torched it. As Marco explained: ‘That plane had only cost very little because the second-hand market for airliners is dead, so it was actually easier and cheaper for the cartel to destroy the plane than try and fly it back to South America. But now they’ve started keeping the airliners because they cause so much less suspicion than the small planes.’

  The current global economic slump has left hundreds of cargo planes and airliners idle. A multiple-engine jet capable of crossing the Atlantic can often cost even less than £100,000. Law enforcement officials on both sides of the Atlantic also believe that the cartels fly Gulfstream executive jets, some of which are also used as transport by the cocaine barons themselves and then leased out by them to the traffickers. Marco explained: ‘The big names like to come in here now and again and they usually arrive unannounced on a Lear jet, which is then sent back to pick up coke in South America and then arrives back in West Africa to pick up the cartel chief for the flight home. These guys don’t like to waste any money if they can help it. The last time authorities even detained a Gulfstream heading for West Africa was back in 2007 as it tried to leave Venezuela, heading for Sierra Leone.

  ‘I worked for the Colombians as their rep in West Africa for eighteen months,’ says Marco. ‘Basically, my job was to ensure that the airfields where these aircraft landed were ready for arrivals. That involved carrying a lot of dollars around to bribe people with.

  ‘Often, I’d have to pay everyone from the local kids in the village to the cops in the nearest police station to ensure the planes were not disturbed. At one stage I had four different airfields in my pocket. The locals got so used to the planes coming in and out that they ignored them. The key thing for me was to prevent any interference with the flights.

  ‘I did have a problem with one local priest in Ghana, who labelled the flights as “devil planes”. But I tracked him down after he wrote a piece for the local paper. I then made a big donation to his church fund and I never heard another word of complaint after that.’

  When one airliner was seized in Sierra Leone in July 2008 with 600kg of cocaine from South America, one of the pilots – a Russian named Konstantin Yaroshenko – was arrested. Later he claimed he was tortured by local police before being handed over to America’s DEA. The Russian foreign ministry later accused the US of ‘kidnapping’ Yaroshenko. Russia’s prime minister, Vladimir Putin, called his arrest an example of the US overstepping its bounds. Yaroshenko, who is currently serving a twenty-year sentence in the US, continues to maintain his innocence.

  Few arrests have ever been made in relation to these Air Cocaine flights. ‘The quantity of cocaine distributed and the means employed to distribute it are extraordinary,’ prosecutors said during one extremely rare criminal case against a West African trafficker in South America. They warned of a conspiracy to ‘spread vast quantities of cocaine throughout the world by way of cargo aeroplanes’. But the case received little media coverage and the flights, meanwhile, are said to be continuing without interruption.

  Marco says he arrived in West Africa just before the ‘breakthrough case’ which blew the lid on Air Cocaine. ‘The truth of the matter is that the case was chickenfeed. It was heard in South America during a court case against a Colombian cartel member, not in West Africa, so it had little effect on operations there.’

  Marco then revealed the organisational skills which go into the Air Cocaine flights to and from West Africa. He explained: ‘I even used detailed spreadsheets to compute flight costs and distribute codebooks to conceal our plans. Special sketched maps of West Africa showing points where the coke could be safely delivered were always used at meetings in Colombia to plan coke drop-offs. Fuel and pilots were usually paid through wire transfers or suitcases filled with cash. I had to be on top of a lot of things at one time. One slip and we’d all be in trouble and if I’d let the Colombians down then they would probably have killed me.’

  Marco was understandably reluctant to talk in any more detail about his ‘duties’ in West Africa for the Colombians but his role highlights the deft organisational skills that are helping the South Americans make such deadly inroads into the area.

  Drug enforcement agents in the US see Air Cocaine as a throwback to the 1970s and ’80s, when pilots flew planes packed with coke freely between Colombia and numerous staging points near the US border. Back then, Mexican drug lords such as Amado Carrillo Fuentes, nicknamed the Lord of the Skies, dispatched jets with as much as 15 tonnes of cocaine from Colombia to northern Mexico. Better radar coverage in the US has now made it almost impossible to move cocaine into the States in such large aircraft.

  The emergence of Venezuela as a popular transit point for South American cocaine is down to its late president Hugo Chávez’s decision in 2005 to sever ties with US law enforcement agencies. That immediately made it easier to store cocaine in staging sites on the Venezuelan coast. The Venezuelan military and police are alleged to this day to be making money by waving through such shipments.

  While most of the cocaine going through West Africa is destined for Europe, there are even some shipments going on to New York through this newly established backdoor route into the US. Marco explained: ‘The traffickers are always looking for new ways into the States because it has got harder and harder to bring coke in via Mexico in the south. Delivering it via West Africa makes sense in some ways but it obviously adds a lot to the transport costs.’

  One Colombian cartel is rumoured to be seriously considering building its own fully functioning airport to cope with the long-range airliners they frequently use to drop cocaine in West Africa. Marco explained: ‘I heard they wanted one big airport so they could land the flights in West Africa and then service the planes so they would be safe to make even more flights back to South America. It sort of sums up the power and influence they hold in the area.’

  Marco said the short length of his ‘job’ in West Africa was deliberate. ‘The Colombians were very professional about it. They reckoned eighteen months was the maximum you should be out there before problems started occurring. They also believed it kept the locals more on their toes if they kept changing their personnel. At the moment West Africa is – in the eyes of the cartels – going from strength to strength. I can seriously see the day when a South American ends up as president of one of these countries. The cartel bosses are doing more for these places than anyone else.’

  Not surprisingly, the cartels have also been brilliant at recruiting the local criminal element in certain West African countries to ensure their lethal ‘product’ enjoys a safe passage and to help increase its consumption.

  CHAPTER 35

  ALFONSO

  Accra – a vibrant city of two million in which the old and new jostle beside each other – has been Ghana’s capital since 1877, when the British ruled this part of West Africa. Now a different type of colonial power – Colombia – is pulling many of the strings in the background of this sprawling city.

  Officially, Ghana claims to have forced the Colombians out by cracking down on internal corruption and stepping up arrests at airports and other transit points. But in reality this is all just wishful thinking on the part of the Ghanaian authorities, desperate to prove they’re not one of the new ‘narco-states’ which have emerged in West Africa in recent years.

  Accra is in fact such an important centre for cocaine trafficking that in 2009, America’s powerful Drug Enforcement Agency opened an office here after three Al-Qaeda-linked men from Mali were arrested in Ghana and charged by US authorities with cocaine trafficking in aid of terrorism.

  The DEA believes that terrorist groups in the region such as Al-Qaeda and the Islamic Maghreb are regularly being hired to help transport cocaine up to North Africa. ‘The cocaine circle is complete when you f
actor in terrorists like Al-Qaeda,’ says one veteran West African smuggler. ‘The Latin American cartels don’t care who they get into bed with as long as they retain their stranglehold on an area. Look at their relationship with FARC in Colombia. It’s lasted for more than thirty years.’

  West African drug trafficking is also implicated in two other terror-financing cases filed recently in New York, one involving the Taliban and the other Hezbollah, the militant Muslim group and political party based in Lebanon.

  With this sort of activity going on right under the noses of the Ghanaian authorities it is no surprise that Accra has recently been compared to Casablanca during the Second World War as a centre for cocaine trafficking, espionage and intrigue.

  * * *

  I am in a darkened warehouse on a half-built industrial estate bordering the commercial centre near Makola Market, where hotels and office blocks can be seen in the distance through the city smog. My host is Alfonso, a Ghanaian with Colombian connections. Just a few kilometres down the road is this nation’s parliament building, where South American cocaine dollars have been employed to try and buy off even the most powerful politicians. Alfonso is protected by heavily armed gang members and his identity is hidden by sunglasses. His beige suit with wide lapels looks like something Tony Montana might have worn in Alfonso’s all-time favourite movie Scarface, starring Al Pacino as Tony Montana, the ultimate cocaine mobster rip-roaring through 1980s Miami.

  ‘This is where it’s at, man,’ he says with the manic glint of sunlight bouncing off his shades. ‘Ghana is safe for coke because we pay all the right people, so no one gives us no trouble.’

  Alfonso says he is 35 but he seems younger. He claims that he was working ‘in the government’ until five years ago when he met a Colombian ‘tourist’ called Gerardo in the bar of a big hotel in the centre of Accra.

  ‘Dis cat bought me couple o’ drinks and asked me if I knew how ta get in touch wid a certain minister. As it happen, I knew diss politician so I organised meetin’ between dem. It was only at dat meetin’ Gerardo admit he a big cocaine gangsta and he want to make sure his powder got thru widout no hassle. Ya dig, man?’

  Alfonso says that he and Gerardo got on so well, ‘He made me an offer I could not refuse.’ Alfonso claims the Colombians offered to set him up as their local ‘main man’ and even supply him with free cocaine every month in exchange for him continuing to introduce them to some important people in the government.

  ‘At first I thought it be better ta just get dem to pay me cash. Then I did my sums and realised that their coke would make me much more money widout any big risks.’

  Alfonso knows full well that if he ever started buying more cocaine from other sources then ‘there might be a few problems with Gerardo and his friends’. He explained: ‘But hey, I more dan happy wid wot I have now.’

  Alfonso reveals a fascinating insight into the coke business in Ghana and the rest of West Africa. ‘It’s new territory for Latins but dey want ta make it permanent and dey doin’ more fa people of West Africa dan de ’mericans or Chinese. Dey knew dat we need schools ’nd shit like dat ’nd dey providin’ it, man.’

  I also get a unique glimpse inside the complex world of buying, distributing and selling large quantities of cocaine and where the future of the business is heading. ‘De Colombians are killers, man. But if ya don’t rip dem off dey fine ta deal wid. In fact, dey seem straighter dan politicians I deal wid here in Ghana!’

  Alfonso could be described as the Colombians’ ‘Gatekeeper’ in Accra. He pays fat fees to the local police, politicians and customs officials to ensure the Colombians’ activities remain unrestricted. In exchange for that, he is now considered one of the most powerful people in Accra.

  ‘Listen, man. Dey need me ta deal wid the Ghanaians. As long as I never rip dem off I will continya ta make big money out deir coke.’

  As he talks, Alfonso’s ‘team’ clinically pack more than a million dollars’ worth of cocaine into vacuum packs, which will then be driven down to South Africa hidden in a van. ‘Dey given me the South African market,’ announces Alfonso with great pride. ‘Diss stuff is de future of Africa, man. You know what? No cats here in Ghana can afford cocaine so I take it ta South Africa. Dere dey got a lotta money.’

  It all makes sense; the Colombians use people like Alfonso to ‘spread the word’ about cocaine so that their marketplaces get bigger and bigger. One old trafficking vet told me that the South Americans have a ten-year plan for each continent. ‘Their ultimate aim is to get the whole world to take cocaine,’ he explained. ‘They learned a big lesson when the US started its so-called war on cocaine. They always need to look to new markets. It all makes good business sense.’

  Meanwhile Alfonso in Ghana insists he’s never even come close to being arrested, despite spending the last five years handling coke virtually every day. ‘Sure I know who ta pay and who owe me favours but ya gotta understand dat de police here don’t understand cocaine at all. Dey just see it as white man’s drug ’nd dey don’t care where it go.’

  Latest UN figures claim more than £10 million worth of cocaine is shipped out of West Africa every week.

  ‘And it’s gonna get bigger and bigger, man. Cocaine is payin’ for so much stuff here. People have regular jobs for de first time in deir lives ’cos of coke. We in a better financial state den we have ever been before. What is so bad wid dat?’

  Sharp-suited ‘cats’ like Alfonso seem to do little to hide their illicit activities. The South American ‘cocaine colonialists’ also need more low-profile characters on their side as well.

  CHAPTER 36

  GEOFFREY

  In places like Ghana, the cocaine cartels also go out of their way to recruit local ‘civilians’ willing to act as fixers for the vast shipments of cocaine which travel through their country. These characters don’t handle or go near the ‘product’. They simply smooth its passage through the country they’re based in. Often they’re middle-ranking politicians or local businessmen with contacts inside the government and police. They are essential to the traffickers because they guarantee every shipment a safe transit but they have no direct connection to the cocaine they are helping to transport.

  One such character is Geoffrey. I first met him many years ago in London. He doesn’t like to advertise the fact he is actually an African prince by birth, although his family ran out of money long ago. Geoffrey explains: ‘Yes, I do come from African royalty but it hasn’t exactly done me much good!’

  Geoffrey, in his late thirties, speaks with a perfect English public school accent thanks to an education at one of the UK’s most exclusive private schools. ‘I had a great time at school but it didn’t prepare me for the real world. After I left university in France, I came back to Ghana because I was expected to work in the family business.’

  That’s when things started to go wrong for Geoffrey. ‘My father was murdered in a politically motivated attack. We were from a tribe who’d opposed the government of the time, so as soon as my father died the business was effectively closed down by the government.’

  Geoffrey claims that other members of his family were targeted by the government. ‘They were told to leave the country but I had nowhere to go, so I took a big risk and stayed to try and start my own business.’

  Geoffrey says that he struggled for almost ten years to run an import/export business that involved a wide range of legitimate goods. ‘But it was terrible. I didn’t make a penny for the first five years but I had no choice, so I plodded on.’

  By the time a change of government in Ghana occurred, Geoffrey was almost destitute. ‘I’d borrowed hundreds of thousands of pounds to keep the business afloat so it was, in a sense, too late. It was ironic, though. Now I had all the contacts in the world to help me inside the government, army, police and all other officials because my father’s old friends and associates were back in power. But I couldn’t even afford to rent a decent home to live in because the loan repayments were crippling me.
’

  On a trip to London to see some friends, Geoffrey bumped into an old classmate from public school. ‘All I will say is that he was South American. The rest is pretty obvious!’

  Within weeks, Geoffrey had been hired by his old schoolmate who needed a ‘rep’ in Ghana to ensure that shipments of cocaine were safely transited through the country. Geoffrey explained: ‘Back then I didn’t even realise the South Americans had started using West African countries as a transit point to transport their cocaine into Europe. I was stunned when I learned how prevalent it was but I was even more impressed by the money this chap was offering to pay me to guarantee the shipments would be safely waved through.’

  Geoffrey continued: ‘I really had no choice. The money they paid me helped me pay off my loans, even though it also meant I was caught up in a huge criminal enterprise. No wonder they decided to target West Africa. There are many people from all walks of life who have no money. In any case, why shouldn’t we get a chunk of this money? They are using us, so we are trying to use them back.’

  Today, Geoffrey lives in an affluent suburb of Accra, and is considered a very successful local businessman. ‘I still run my company at a loss and the South Americans help me to keep it afloat because they want me to camouflage my earnings from them. It works perfectly.’

  Geoffrey’s job involves a lot of ‘meeting and greeting’. He explains. ‘I turn up at all the official and unofficial government functions now. It’s my job to know everyone. Sometimes I give certain officials “gifts” on behalf of the South Americans to make sure things continue to go smoothly for their product.’

  Geoffrey believes that hundreds of thousands of West Africans are now reaping the benefits of providing the South American cocaine trade with a safe ‘hub’ to ensure transportation into Europe and even back across the Atlantic to the US. ‘The South Americans have helped the economies of a number of countries, including Ghana, in this region. I am sorry to say they have probably had more influence than the governments of America and Europe combined.’