Algeria & Contraband: June Brief

This brief highlights contraband seizures reported in June by Algeria's Ministry of Defense.

Narcotics

Algeria seized slightly over 4,690 kilograms of kif (cannabis resin) in June. Fifty-six percent of seizures (2,665.45 kg) occurred along the north-western border with Morocco, primarily in the wilaya of Tlemcen. Most seizures in this zone were medium sized (100-300 kg). In contrast, 26% of the month's seizure volume came from one extremely large interdiction in Béni‐Ounif, in the central-western wilaya of Béchar. Only 14% of the month's kif seizures took place away from the Moroccan border zone--most of these occurred in the eastern wilayas of Ghardaïa and Biskra, underscoring the continued salience of non-coastal drug smuggling routes from Morocco to Libya.

A small number of psychotropic pills (1,780) were also seized in Biskra in June, though by far the largest seizure of psychotropics (30,100 pills) occurred near the central southern city of In Salah on 09 June.

Weapons

No significant weapons or ammunition seizures were made in June.

Migrants

Compared to 2016, Algerian clandestine migration to Europe in 2017 has spiked sharply. Between January and June 2016, Algerian authorities reported the interdiction of 388 Algerian clandestine migrants on and close to the country's littoral. Over the same period in 2017, 1,317 Algerian migrants were interdicted, including 440 in June alone. In 70% of cases, June's reporting data was not specific enough to analyze where the migrants were departing from. In the minority of cases where the data was clear it showed that 52% of migrants were caught in the west, departing for Spain, 14% were caught in the country's center, likely departing for Spain, and 32% were caught in the east, departing for Italy, mainly Sardinia.

In addition to Algerian migrants, the Army and Gendarmerie detained 381 non-Algerian migrants. This number is elevated slightly from June 2016, when 226 migrants were arrested. In total, 3,941 non-Algerian migrants have been detained to date in 2017, versus 3,576 in 2016.

Subsidized Commodities

Petrol

Between 01 and 30 June, the Algerian Army, Gendarmerie, and Customs seized 74,096 liters of contraband petrol. Fifty percent of interdictions, 37,066 liters, occurred in the Wilayas of Souk‐ Ahras, Tébessa, and El‐Taref on the Tunisian border. Algeria's southern border zone abutting Mali and Niger accounted for another sixteen percent of seizures (12,520 liters). Finally, the border with Morocco, once the epicenter of the contraband trade in petrol, accounted for only two seizures in June, totaling 7,680 liters. Information on the origin of twenty-two percent of June petrol seizures was unclear or involved mixed reporting.

Tobacco

Three seizures of contraband tobacco were made in June. Two occurred in Tlemcen, on the Moroccan border, involving 9,500 cigarettes and 13,600 units of tobacco. The final interdiction occurred in the east, involving Algerian forces from Biskra and El Oued. Likely intended for the Libyan market, the shipment involved 10,560 kg of tobacco.

Food

In June, 92.5% of contraband food seizures were made along Algeria's southern borders with Mali and Niger. In all a total of 84,100 kg of contraband food was interdicted, along with 30,900 liters of olive oil and 2,308 beverages. While olive oil smuggling was concentrated along the southern border, seizures of contraband beverages were exclusively made on the Moroccan frontier.

Other

A number of additional types of goods were seized in Algeria during June. Gold mining tools and implements were the most common, including jackhammers, electric generators, and metal detectors. Most of these seizures occurred on or close to Algeria's border with Niger, where a significant artisanal gold rush is ongoing. In addition, a 3,096 bottles of contraband cosmetics were uncovered in El Oued, an entrepôt for both Libya and Tunisia bound smuggling. Finally, in the north-east, in El-Taref, over nine kilograms of illegal coral was interdicted.

At the edge: Trends and routes of North African clandestine migrants

From The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. The Publication Can be Accessed Here.

Jointly with the Institute for Security Studies, the Global Initiative published At the edge (Nov 2016) as part of a research project on human smuggling from Africa to Europe, funded by the Hanns Seidel Foundation (HSF). Our research team sat down with smugglers themselves in Libya, Turkey, in the Sahel and in Sub-Saharan Africa to understand who are the smugglers behind Europe’s migration crisis, to understand how they operate, what drew them into the trade, and how they are responding to international community efforts to end illicit migration.

In 2015, over 16,000 Algerians, Tunisians and Moroccans were caught while attempting to migrate to Europe covertly. Though North Africans are a relatively small portion of the masses of clandestine migrants, they are a critical group to understand. They are the innovators and early adaptors of new methods and routes for migrant smuggling, such as their pioneering in the 1990s and 2000s of the routes across the Mediterranean that now fuel Europe’s migration crisis. Understanding how and why North Africans migrate, the routes they use, and how these are changing, offers insights into how clandestine migration methods and routes in general may shift in the coming years. In shaping better responses to actual dynamics, it is important for countries to proactively address the chronic conditions that drive forced migration before they generate social instability.

How does your garden grow? The Tuxtla Gutiérrez Cocaine Experiment

Originally Published by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, Available Here.

The find was unexpected and troubling. On September 9th, in the small Mexican town of Tuxtla Gutiérrez—located in Chiapas state—authorities uncovered the first evidence of large-scale efforts to grow coca in the country. Acting on the tip, members of the Mexican security services raided a property and found over 1,600 coca plants. The plantation was reportedly closely connected to a series of arrests in the nearby city of Tapachula, which involved the seizure of 180 kilos of coca leaf—the organic precursor for cocaine. The plantation in Tuxtla Gutiérrez is reportedly Mexico’s first evidence of coca growing in the country, and presents key questions: why in Mexico, why now, and where is this likely to lead?

The modern cocaine business is rooted in coca growth in South America—primarily in Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia. Once grown, coca is transformed—step-by-step—into cocaine. Several hundred tons of dried coca leaves are required for the production of a single ton of cocaine, requiring mass cultivation—and thus a large production area—to cater to the cocaine consumer markets in North America, Europe, and increasingly East Asia. In the modern era of cocaine, this cultivation has occurred almost exclusively in the South American nations listed above. However, this monopoly on production is rooted in social, political, and (illicit) economic rational, not horticultural necessities.

In the early 20th century the Dutch and Japanese developed thriving coca plantations in East Asia, while the British and French experimented with its growth in their African colonies and in other areas around the world. World War II and the gradual prohibition of cocaine that followed curtailed coca’s industrial-scale production in these disparate areas of the world. Only in South America—where the shrub was first domesticated and still home to a thriving indigenous market in coca (though not cocaine)—did growing continue. Efforts by South American states to eradicate production have had little success, and have more often than not resulted in alienated farmers and empowered insurgents. Until now, drug trafficking organizations have had little impetus to relocate production outside of the Andean region.

While only its creators know the rational for developing the plantation in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, an examination of the current situation in Central American transport countries and the Caribbean provide hints. First, violence and instability in Central America has worsened over the last several years. Drug trafficking organizations are popularly viewed as thriving in—and actively seeking to create—chaotic situations and failing states, however this is only true to a degree. For both licit and illicit businesses, societal chaos and the absence of state services impede financial and logistical planning, and generally increase the cost of doing business. While illicit businesses may have tools—such as paramilitary protection units—that enable them to weather chaotic situations better than most, such situations are far from ideal for them. In Central America street gangs, tumbadores (groups specializing in the theft of narcotic shipments), and local drug trafficking groups have gained power in recent years, increasing the risks—and hence the cost—that Mexican DTOs face in transporting narcotics through the area.

Apart from Central America, the other main route between South American cocaine production zones and North American markets is through the Caribbean—a route that was heavily favored in the 1970s and 1980s, before being largely abandoned due to aggressive U.S. maritime and air interdiction efforts. There have been some attempts to reinvigorate trafficking through this area, though U.S. military and law enforcement focus on the area make smuggling efforts complicated and risky. There are few easy—and economical—transport options for Mexican cocaine traffickers in the present day. Attempts to grow the drug in Mexico may thus be an experiment in shortening their supply chain, decreasing their exposure to chaos in Central America and U.S. interdiction efforts in the Caribbean. An additional benefit for Mexican cartels is that domestic production of coca cuts Colombian DTOs out of the equation, and increasing their own profits.

As an experiment, the Tuxtla Gutiérrez plantation may have succeeded even though it was uncovered. Over 1,600 plants were grown, existing long enough for at least 180 kilograms of coca leaf to be harvested. The problem with the Tuxtla Gutiérrez plantation was, mainly, that the effort took place in Tuxtla Gutiérez. While Mexico’s security services have been buffeted by the drug trafficking wars of the 2000s, they are far better trained, well equipped, and more numerous than their counterparts in Central America. Had the Tuxtla Gutiérrez plantation been created on the other side of the Mexico-Guatemala border—a few kilometers from the town—it is far less likely the endeavor would have been uncovered. This raises the question of whether other coca production experiments are occurring in Guatemala or other Central American countries? If so, already weakened Central American countries could face a significant new and extremely dangerous threat.

The Tuxtla Gutiérrez plantation also raises risks outside of Mexico and Central America. The increasing popularity of cocaine in Europe and East Asia have forced DTOs to develop long cocaine supply chains that stretch through often unstable areas of the world and are highly vulnerable to disruption and interdiction. If drug trafficking organizations are experimenting in growing coca closer to one consumption market, it raises the possibility they similarly may try to create plantations closer to their other major markets. As the coca producers of the early 20th century demonstrated, there is little horticultural bar to developing coca production in Asia and Africa. It remains to be seen whether the Tuxtla Gutiérrez experiment is the beginning of a new trend, and if so where it will focus and what the ramifications will be.

Petrol smuggling: oiling the wheels of organized crime

Originally Published by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, Available Here.

As night falls the petrol smugglers on the Algerian-Moroccan border get to work. Moroccan villages that are languid by day now buzz with activity, as old Peugeots and Renaults roar down the dusty access roads that parallel the frontier. Closer to the border, long lines of donkeys—each loaded with twenty 30-liter jerry cans—are arriving from Algeria. The commerce is brisk, with petrol exchanged for food, goods, and cash. For those willing to risk crossing the border, the profits are enormous. By morning, the border is again dusty and deserted, as the smugglers wait for the darkness of night to reengage in their lucrative trade.

The theft and illicit sale of petrol is widespread.  Worldwide, organized crime syndicates and petty traders profit off the differences in the price of petroleum, buying petrol where it is cheap—or stealing it—and selling it slightly below market rates in areas where it is more expensive. There is no shortage of customers. Apart from its profitability, petrol smuggling is attractive to organized crime groups due to the ease with which they can procure the product. For most smugglers, their petrol comes straight from the pump at a local service station.  For some the product is procured directly from wholesalers, while in other places —notably Nigeria and Mexico—the petrol is stolen in bulk from pipelines. The sale of the petrol is as easy, either sold at the roadside, or fenced through unscrupulous service station owners. While smuggled petrol usually stays within the region it has been pilfered from, stolen crude oil can go global, fed into refineries half a world away.

Those involved in petrol smuggling are a diverse and divergent lot. The most numerous are local crime networks. These men—and occasionally women—tend to operate in defined areas along international borders, buying and selling in local markets. While these groups are typically small and locally situated, they can have a complex internal organization. As one smuggler along the Tunisian-Algerian border explained “a bunch of different groups function within our network – the buyers, the loaders, the drivers, and the leaders.” The barriers to entry are low, with the same smuggling noting that the major hurdle for him was coming up with enough capital to buy a truck to smuggle with. While some within the local smuggling networks get wealthy off the trade, for most it offers a comfortable though hardly extravagant livelihood.

At the other end of the scale, there are also highly organized, transnational networks active in petrol smuggling. Many of these groups started as local smugglers and evolved—through opportunity or necessity—into highly organized, large-volume smuggling networks. Nigeria’s smuggling networks offer a stark example of just how powerful, large, and sophisticated smuggling networks can become. Operating in the country’s Niger Delta, the smuggling networks reportedly siphon 150,000 barrels a day from the region’s pipelines. The vast majority of the oil—roughly 120,000 barrels—is exported, transported throughout West Africa and onto the international market. In some cases, the networks employ oil tankers to move their ill-gotten gains.

A third type of actor involved in petrol smuggling involves existent transnational organized crime group looking for new opportunities. For these groups, petrol smuggling is usually not their primary illicit business. Rather, it represents an opportunistic expansion by the group into a new business area that presents minimal risk and high-profits. In Mexico, the Zetas and other Drug Trafficking Organization are expanding rapidly into petrol theft and smuggling. In an interesting derivation, the Zetas reportedly both smuggle petrol and levy taxes on any small-scale smugglers seeking to work in areas they control.

Governments and industry are aware that they face a challenge. A number of oil producing countries have begun to combat petrol smuggling. However, in many locations where smuggling is rife there is more official noise than action—petrol smuggling is rarely perceived as existentially threatening to the state, in the same way that drug and arms trafficking may be. Frequently, government officials themselves are believed to be either involved or complicit in the trade. Nonetheless, petrol trafficking can have serious ramifications for those states that it touches. One need look no further than Syria and Iraq, where oil smuggling have helped to bankroll the operations of the Islamic State militant group. As the price of oil edges of up inexorably over the coming decades, it is likely that petrol smuggling will become more profligate and more profitable for the groups involved. International actors need to act soon, creating new forums to coordinate actions against such groups and mechanisms for identify and deterring their operations in order to mitigate the threats they pose.