Gambian firm, employees charged with cocaine trafficking

Banjul - A court in Gambia charged one of the country's leading import firms and seven of its employees with drug trafficking on Thursday after 45kg of cocaine were discovered in a sugar shipment from Brazil last month.

West Africa is a significant transit zone for Latin American cocaine bound for Europe.

Shops belonging to Shyben A Madi & Sons, which imports vehicles from China and rice, sugar and flour from Brazil, have been closed and under police guard since Monday.

Charges read out in a court in the capital Banjul included conspiracy and aggravated drug trafficking. None of the defendants appeared in court, and no plea was entered.

The court did not name the final destination of the shipment seized in Gambia.

Two men were charged in Ghana last month with conspiring to import nearly 6 tonnes of cocaine from Bolivia one of the biggest seizures of drugs linked to West Africa.