Caption: Attorney General of Mozambique, Beatriz Buchili (center) and Américo Latela, Director of the Central Office for Combating Organised and Transnational Crime (right) © Office of the Attorney General of Mozambique
Maputo (Mozambique), 7 February 2024 – Member States of the Community of Portuguese-speaking Countries (CPLP) – Angola, Brazil, Cabo Verde, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe, Portugal and Timor-Leste –, are not immune to the global threats posed by drug trafficking and other forms of transnational organized crime. Mozambique and Guinea Bissau, for instance, have in recent years grappled with an increase in cocaine trafficking within and through their territories, while Brazil remains one of the world’s main departure points for cocaine trafficking.
According to the 2023 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Global 2023 Report on Cocaine, Brazilian crime groups seem to be increasingly targeting Portuguese-speaking countries like Mozambique, Angola and Cabo Verde. This trend is evidenced by the multiple seizures of cocaine originating from Brazil, both at sea and in airports in these countries. The high-profile arrest of Fuminho, a member of the notorious Brazilian organized criminal group Primeiro Comando do Capital (PCC) in Mozambique in 2020, further underscores the severity of this issue for the Southern African country, which saw a 150% increase in total seized amounts of cocaine between 2020 and 2021.
Brazilian organized crime groups, such as the PCC, have also made their presence felt in Portugal. And large quantities of cocaine seized in Guinea-Bissau, located in West Africa, signal the country’s importance in the field of drug trafficking, which ranks among the top countries of origin for seized cocaine shipments in Portugal, further illustrating how drug trafficking syndicates have capitalized on linguistic and cultural ties to extend their illicit operations across the lusophone space and beyond.
Such ties can, however, also serve as a powerful “catalyst” for effective international cooperation between CPLP law enforcement and criminal justice actors, as underscored by Antonio De Vivo, Head of the UNODC Programme Office in Mozambique, at the opening of this year’s annual meeting of CPLP attorneys-general and directors of police and criminal investigation agencies held in Maputo. These commonalities, De Vivo emphasized, place Portuguese-speaking nations in a "mutually privileged position" to effectively collaborative in fighting transnational organized crime and drug trafficking.
The conference (5-6 February 2024) was hosted by the Office of the Attorney General of Mozambique in collaboration with UNODC and sought to strengthen the role of the criminal justice sector in effectively preventing and combatting drug trafficking and other forms of transnational organized crime among CPLP countries.
In his opening remarks of the high-level conference, the Prime-Minister of Mozambique, H.E. Adriano Afonso Maleiane, underscored the need for multisectoral, holistic and concerted response to the operations of increasingly sophisticated modus operandi of drug trafficking groups stemming from regional integration and globalization. Calling for a “new collective approach” by CPLP against the evolving threat of transnational drug trafficking, the Attorney General of Mozambique, H.E. Beatriz Buchili, stressed that “beyond formal cooperation, the speed and operations of criminals require countries to reinforce legal and judiciary cooperation between States and the adoption of informal and more expeditious information sharing mechanisms, as well as the creation of joint investigation teams whenever necessary.”
H.E. Kelve Nobre de Carvalho, the Attorney General of São Tomé and Principe, a small island country in the Gulf of Guinea, described the meeting as a platform to identify "common mechanisms" to combat this phenomenon and “bring home experiences and lessons” that will allow CPLP to "effectively combat drug trafficking in a united manner.”
With a focus on drug trafficking, topics discussed throughout the conference included informal cooperation mechanisms and joint criminal investigations to investigate and disrupt organized and transnational crime, in particular illicit flows between CPLP countries. Delegates also discussed related current and emerging challenges faced by the Community’s Member States, in particular the recent surge in new synthetic drugs.
Furthermore, CPLP counterparts and UNODC discussed the nexus between money laundering, drug trafficking and the financing of terrorism, a particularly concerning issue for Mozambique, where drug trafficking constitutes one of the main financing sources for terrorist groups operating in the northern region of Mozambique since 2017, as recognized by Buchili. Delegates also heard from a guest representative from Kenya, who shared the Eastern African country’s experience in tackling transnational organized crime, terrorism and its financing.
As a key outcome of the two-day meeting, CPLP adopted a final declaration outlining a set of recommendations based on the discussions, renewing its Member States’ commitment towards concerted efforts to curb these phenomena.
Following this high-level meeting, UNODC will host a meeting of anti-drugs public prosecutors in the coming weeks. Together with its international partners, UNODC is committed to continue deepening its partnership with CPLP nations in their fight against drug trafficking and other forms of transnational organized crime. As stated by De Vivo, “this partnership goes beyond mere formal agreements. It represents a deep commitment to justice, the rule of law and the security of all CPLP citizens.”
