The UN agency that fights drugs and crime estimated that cocaine trafficking is generating some $900 million annually in West and Central Africa as South American cartels use the shortest route to transport drugs to Europe.

The drugs trade in West Africa is going the way of Mexico, with local players increasingly taking control of an ever more sophisticated system to smuggle cocaine into the rich market to the north, the UN said

The amount of cocaine trafficked through West Africa has been declining steadily over the past four years, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

Global mafias are using corrupt nations in west Africa to run their syndicates and the area is now a ''hole in the wall'' in the international fight against organised crime, says the former head of Britain's top police unit