In this feature, part of a series exploring the fight against trafficking in the Sahel, UN News focuses on the illegal oil trade in the region.
Transported by criminal networks and financed by gangs, illegal oil has four main routes that are smuggled across the Sahel to willing buyers, earning millions from countries on the road to stabilize the region that faces security, home to 300 million people.
“The sale of oil undermines the rule of law; it fuels corruption,” said François Patuel, Head of Research and Advocacy at the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). “It is also enabling other types of crime. That’s why you need to fight.”
Oil transportation in the Sahel
Demand calls, dealers are answering
The oil business is big business in the region. A report from UNODC, Oil transportation in the Sahel, found that it funds illegal non-state armed groups, terrorist groups, financial institutions, corrupt law enforcement officials, and groups related to prominent people with interests in real estate. -retail kitchen service. It is also in high demand among residents.
The biggest contributors are low, heavily supported gas prices in Algeria, Libya, and Nigeria. UNODC reported that Libyan gas stations charge 11 cents a liter, but across the border, Malian pump prices average $1.94.
Lost millions
“Just by crossing the border, they make a profit of 90 cents per liter,” explained Mr. Patuel. “It’s easy access for criminal groups.”
He said that those who are shipping are selling to the people, who rely on cheap fuel to do their work and their daily life, from the generators to produce electricity or to fill up their gas. they did not go to the market.
“They really exploit those needs to sell their criminal products, including illegal fuel,” he added.
The UNODC report tracks operations across Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger. Along with the roads they are carrying, drivers carry millions of liters of gasoline every year. The routes are organized from Algeria to Mali, another link Libya to Niger and Chad, and another one starts in Nigeria through Benin to Burkina Faso, and through Niger to Mali.
The lost income for Sahelian countries is staggering, said Amado Philip de Andrés, UNODC regional representative for West and Central Africa.
Illicit business to Niger costs nearly $8 million annually in tax revenue, according to the country’s High Authority for Combating Corruption and Related Crimes. Traders avoid taxes by buying oil marked for export at reduced prices and diverting deliveries at home or across borders, the Government office said.
Motorcycles carrying fuel in Dosso, Niger, near the Nigerian border.
Tax burden
Terrorists do, however, pay “tribute” to newly formed terrorist groups, including around Kourou/Koualou, where illegal warehouses store tanks of contraband oil during transit, UNODC reports, adding that groups affiliated with Al-Qaida operate some of the region’s gold-rich mines, and payments are often made on the contrary.
In terms of natural resource trafficking in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, “local communities are particularly vulnerable, as they live in isolated areas with limited law enforcement,” according to Alert Trends report from the Security Council’s Director-General’s Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTED).
Often, illegal oil causes a very deep sea of trafficking, showing the proximity of criminal activities, from drugs to migrants, said Mr. Patuel, citing the example of the Nigerian police attack in 2021 of 17 tons of cannabis resin that we only know. an oil baron who owns oil stations. The suspect allegedly used drug money to buy contraband fuel that was sold at his petrol stations.
UNODC shows new and disturbing trends showing the companies associated with the people of the Security Council authorized for the people involved in the transfer of oil from Niger to Mali, as traders are market is constantly growing.
Such drama has raised alarms across the UN system. Expressing constant concern at terrorist groups using the proceeds of natural resource trafficking to finance their nefarious activities, the UN Security Council has urged States to, among other things, hold perpetrators accountable.
In Burkina Faso, frontline officers have carried out checks at suspected repatriation sites.
A nice mess
However, completing the oil transfer is a complex task with fatal consequences in a region with sky-high rates of unemployment, from 78.2 per cent in Niger to 96.9 per cent in Chad. Improper oil flows, UNODC worries, can raise transportation and energy costs as well as costs for many goods and business services.
The Office recommends that the countries of the Sahel and neighboring countries recommend and prosecute cases with direct links to organized crime, armed groups, and corruption. At hand are the tools contained in such international agreements as the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the UN Convention against Corruption.
Capping illegal language
While some anti-smuggling efforts have been met with violent resistance, including the death of a law enforcement officer, despite the risks, countries continue to make illegal flows using new methods and cooperation, UNODC said.
The agency’s new threat assessment on the event provides examples of examples, from the gas tankers that the police have located in Algeria near the border of Mali to Benin have ordered blockades and attacks to stop border armed groups stand.
For its part, Burkina Faso has been fully disbanding since 2019 the highly organized oil smuggling network that caused more than 3 million contraband in a three-year period, with trucks carrying up to 30,000 liters for a trip.
Back in Kourou / Koualou, the flow of illegal oil has been reduced to a trickle after the government’s losses, but terrorist groups continue “to tax what is still being traded in oil, and other goods that oppose ”, according to UNODC.
“Criminal groups eat and exploit the needs of the population,” said the agency’s chief investigator Mr. Patuel. “Joining efforts and having a regional approach will lead to success in tackling organized crime in the region.”
Ongoing violence, climate change, desertification, and tension over natural resources are all worsening hunger and poverty throughout Chad.
HE is the action
The UN and its partners are working to eliminate trafficking and rebuild opportunities in the region. Here are some examples:
- The UN launched a $180 million project in 2022 targeting 1.6 million people in the Liptako-Gourma region, bordering Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, aiming to improve economic opportunities and livelihoods, with a focus on women, youth, and pastoralists. , as part of its Integrated Strategy for the Sahel (UNISS).
- Within the UNISS peace and security initiatives, a project is helping to prevent the spread and rise of violent extremism in the transborder areas between Senegal, Guinea, and Mali.
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Participants exchanged initiatives and ideas on preventing violent crime in West and Central Africa at the meeting held in Dakar from 28 February to 2 March and organized by the UN Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS), the Senegalese Center for the Advancement of Defense and Security Studies, and the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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The International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the G5 Sahel Force signed a new agreement in April to strengthen regional and intra-state cooperation across the spectrum of human mobility as a catalyst for capacity building, development, and integrated border management in the G5 countries. (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger).
- The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is facing the challenges that arise in Côte d’Ivoire, giving at the end of May its first status report on the country, which continues to be affected by the resurgence of the conflict from the central crisis Sahel.
The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, has launched a cash-for-work program which recruits youth from host communities in Awaradi, Niger, to make bricks.
