Sierra Leone’s main opposition leader, Abdulai Kargbo, has raised concerns over alleged connections between the country and international drug trafficking networks following the seizure of a massive cocaine shipment linked to a vessel that departed from Freetown. In an open letter addressed to President Julius Maada Bio on Monday, Kargbo said recent developments had damaged Sierra Leone’s international reputation and raised fears about the possible infiltration of organized crime into state institutions. The concerns follow a major operation by Spanish authorities last week in which police intercepted a Comoros-flagged vessel in the Atlantic Ocean carrying 30 tonnes of cocaine valued at an estimated $700 million, along with firearms. According to Spanish police, the ship had departed from Sierra Leone’s capital and was heading toward the Mediterranean.
Authorities arrested 23 people onboard, including 17 Filipino nationals, five Dutch citizens, and one person from Suriname. Kargbo said the ability of a heavily armed vessel allegedly linked to transnational criminal networks to leave Sierra Leonean territory undetected had triggered serious questions about border security and possible institutional complicity. He warned that repeated international reports connecting Sierra Leone, its ports, and some of its citizens to narcotics trafficking risk undermining public trust and the country’s global standing. The opposition leader also pointed to growing scrutiny surrounding Dutch fugitive Jos Leijdekkers, one of Europe’s most wanted drug traffickers, who has reportedly been seen in Sierra Leone in recent months alongside senior political figures, including President Bio.
Leijdekkers, identified by Europol as a major figure in international cocaine trafficking, was sentenced in absentia by a Rotterdam court in 2024 to 24 years in prison for organizing the shipment of nearly seven tonnes of cocaine and ordering a murder. The Sierra Leonean government has not publicly commented on the allegations but says investigations are ongoing into the circumstances surrounding the seized vessel. West Africa has increasingly become a major transit corridor for cocaine trafficked from Latin America to Europe, according to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, with criminal networks exploiting weak maritime surveillance and porous borders in the region.
