Liberia seizes $317 million of cocaine bound for Europe, police chief says

MONROVIA, July 24 - Liberian authorities have seized around $317 million worth of cocaine that was bound for Europe, a senior police official said, in one of the West African country's largest recorded drug busts.

Officers found 3,971 kg of cocaine in the town of Duazon, east of the capital Monrovia, on Tuesday, Gregory Coleman, inspector general of the Liberian National Police, told Reuters.

They arrested two suspects, one with passports from both Spain and Colombia, the other with a Serbian passport, he added.

Video and pictures released by the force showed a house filled with cardboard boxes and suitcases wrapped in cling film and marked "Coco" and "Poseidon".

It was unclear where the drugs came from, Coleman said. A chemical analysis needed to be done and markings examined to identify the country of origin, he added.

Drug smugglers often use West African countries as a transit point to smuggle large volumes of cocaine from South America to Europe.

SOPHISTICATED NETWORKS STORING DRUGS IN WEST AFRICA

Last month Liberian authorities seized 237.6 kg of cocaine with an estimated street value of more than $19 million at Roberts International Airport outside Monrovia. That shipment came from Sierra Leone and was bound for Britain, Coleman said.

It has been linked to Dutch cocaine kingpin Jos Leijdekkers, Coleman added, though he declined to provide details. Reuters reported last year that Leijdekkers, one of Europe's most wanted fugitives, had found refuge and high-level protection in Sierra Leone.

Coleman told Reuters the police had not established a link between the two cases and believed the cocaine involved came from different sources.

"The recent seizures in Liberia illustrate wider trends on cocaine trafficking globally," with drug traffickers diversifying routes and increasing volumes, Francois Patuel, head of research for West and Central Africa for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, said.

Lucia Bird Ruiz-Benitez de Lugo, director of the Observatory of Illicit Economies in West Africa — which is part of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime — said some of the world's most sophisticated cocaine networks are operating in West Africa where big volumes of drugs are being stored. REUTERS