West Africa has become a major and expanding logistics, warehousing, and redistribution hub in the global cocaine trade, with the market in the region larger than ever and increasingly damaging to public health, governance, and security, according to a new report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC).

Cocaine trafficking through West Africa has accelerated sharply since 2019, driven by record production in Latin America, rising demand in Europe, tighter enforcement on direct transatlantic routes, and improving trade infrastructure in West Africa, according to the report. Some analysts now estimate that about 30 percent of Europe’s cocaine supply passed through West Africa in 2025, GI-TOC said.

Most of the cocaine moving through the region is shipped onward to Europe, either directly or through North Africa or Turkey, but a growing share remains in West Africa, feeding expanding local markets for powder cocaine and crack. Retail prices have fallen in many urban centers, while users in multiple countries reported improved availability, the report said.

The study found that maritime trafficking accounts for the largest share of the illicit trade by far, with multi-ton consignments warehoused across the region, while air routes support smaller but steady flows and overland trans-Sahel routes handle lower volumes linked in some areas to conflict dynamics.

GI-TOC said the cocaine trade is also intensifying corruption across state structures, with the profitability of the market undermining governance even as official data gaps continue to obscure the full scale of trafficking and weaken the regional response.

Read the GI-TOC report here