By Jan Wesner Childs
U.S. AFRICOM Public Affairs  Print     Share  

STUTTGART, Germany, 

Mar 26, 2012 — U.S. Africa Command personnel had a chance to learn about drug smuggling, illegal arms transportation and other issues affecting maritime and air cargo trade from a leading expert in the field, March 23, 2012.

Hugh Griffiths, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research, met Friday with representatives from the command group, the intelligence and planning directorates, as well as several other stakeholders in maritime and air cargo security.

Griffiths also moderated two round-table discussions, which gave participants a chance to ask detailed questions.

SIPRI is an independent think tank that researches conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament. It's among the world's top think tanks on African issues, according to the University of Pennsylvania's Think Tank Index.

The organization also provides databases and research on African weapons trafficking, organized crime networks, and illicit maritime and air cargo trade.

The latter was the primary topic during Griffiths' visit.

"The line between what is illegal, what is illicit and what is perfectly acceptable is often blurred," Griffiths said.

Griffiths said this is especially true on the African continent, where an air cargo carrier could be transporting illegal arms one day and much-needed humanitarian aid the next.

Pete Burgess, who works in AFRICOM's counter-narcotics division and participated in one of the roundtable discussions, pointed out that curtailing illegal and illicit trafficking is critical to a stable economy.

"It's that free flow of goods and services that's going to help Africa develop economically," Burgess said.

Griffiths said everything from fishing boats to private jets is used for smuggling, often times without the pilot or ship captain knowing what the cargo is. Other times, the owner of the vessel might not be aware.

One focus of SIPRI's research is to look at ways to better track cargo as it goes through the transportation chain. Griffiths said that's where investigators might find documents linking illicit cargo back to its producer, shipping broker or end user.

"The information is readily available in many cases," he said, but often times no one looks.

Griffiths said another challenge is that inspecting cargo often takes a long time and a ship or airline crew is reluctant to voluntarily do anything that could lead to a delay.

He said larger ports in the U.S. have streamlined inspection processes.

"Unfortunately such mechanisms haven't been developed in the rest of the world, most notably Africa," Griffiths said.

Illicit transport of cargo means not only that illegal items are possibly being smuggled, but also that taxes aren't being paid on legal items that are moved secretly across borders.

"Generally we think this is very important because this is the direction where a lot of revenue and trade are going," he said.