Police in Guinea-Bissau seize nearly 3 tons of cocaine on plane from Venezuela

BISSAU, Guinea-Bissau -- Police in Guinea-Bissau seized 2.6 tons of cocaine from a plane that arrived from Venezuela in the West African country’s capital, Bissau, over the weekend, judicial police said Monday.

The agents confiscated 78 bales of drugs that were smuggled in on a Gulfstream IV aircraft during a raid on Saturday afternoon at Bissau’s Osvaldo Vieira International Airport, the police said in a statement.

The crew of five, which included two Mexican nationals as well as citizens of Colombia, Ecuador and Brazil, were arrested, including the pilot.

Cocaine seizures are becoming increasingly common in West Africa. The region has become a key transit hub for drugs from Latin America and Southwest Asia destined for Europe, according to a U.N. report released earlier this year.

Guinea-Bissau in particular is known as a preferred route for international drug cartels. Earlier this year, the son of the country's former president, Malam Bacai Sanha, was sentenced to more than six years in prison by a U.S. court for leading an international heroin trafficking ring.

The cocaine seizure on Saturday was carried out in close cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre–Narcotics, a European organization, the judicial police said in its statement.

Neighboring Senegal also announced a record-breaking cocaine seizure of 1137 kilograms (2,506 pounds) — the most ever intercepted on land and valued at $146 million — near an artisanal mine in the east of the country earlier this year.