Venezuelan plane crashed in Mali, near a city called Gao,and unloaded drug and other illegal substances

Venezuelan drugs Boeing crashed in Mali: UN

(AFP) – Nov 16, 2009

DAKAR — A Boeing plane that used to transport cocaine from Venezuela to West Africa crashed in northern Mali earlier this month after a failed take-off, the representative of the UN's regional office on drugs and crime said Monday.

"A Boeing coming from Venezuela landed on a makeshift landing strip some 15 kilometres (nine miles) from Gao (in the north east) and unloaded cocaine and other illegal substances," Alexandre Schmidt of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) told journalists in Dakar.

"The plane wanted to take off but crashed on November 5th," he added.

Smidt said the amount of drugs carried on the plane was not known but explained a Boeing could carry some 10 tonnes of cocaine.

The drugs have not yet been recovered and the international police organisation Interpol is carrying out an investigation.

"This is the first time as far as we know" that south American drugs lords have used a plane of such capacity, rented for the occasion, to smuggle cocaine to Africa, he added.

In recent years west Africa has become an important transit point for South American cocaine being smuggled to the European markets.http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hQsbDflTN7z5Wle8JK-TyiLZ2-TA

another article of David Blair in the telegraph : Special Report: West Africa welcomes Latin America's drug barons : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/senegal/3546011/Special-Report-West-Africa-welcomes-Latin-Americas-drug-barons.html