"We have an interest in and have been heavily invested in the region over the past few years," Jeffrey Scott, a spokesperson for the US Drug Enforcement Adminstration (DEA), told The Daily Telegraph.
"We have supplemented our in-country offices with training and support similar to that provided in Afghanistan and elsewhere, with a view to ramping up the capacity of our counterparts." The move follows on from an earlier increase in US efforts to crack down on drug trafficking in Central America, according to reports in The New York Times.
"We see Africa as the new frontier in terms of counterterrorism and counternarcotics issues," Jeffrey P. Breeden, the chief of the DEA's Europe, Asia and Africa section, was quoted as saying in The New York Times.
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), an estimated 50 tons of cocaine are trafficked through West Africa annually, while significant volumes of heroin are also believed to be in transit.
Traffickers benefit from weak governance, less sophisticated surveillance and law enforcement capacity, and underdeveloped border controls.
West Africa was identified as a key cocaine transit route some years ago, with then UNODC head, Antonio Maria Costa, describing Guinea Bissau as under "attack" from cocaine traffickers in 2007.
In 2011, the UNODC drew attention to the emergence of East Africa as a heroin trafficking hub, with traffickers increasingly bringing Afghan heroin into East Africa from Pakistan for onward transportation to Europe.
