The bus station in Agadez is very busy. The Nigerien desert city is one of the most important regional hubs. Here, on the northern edge of the Sahel, trade routes between West Africa and the Maghreb have converged for centuries.

And the boundaries between legally traded goods and smuggled goods have always been blurred. In particular the smuggling of people from sub-Saharan Africa who set off for Europe without papers is – at least unofficially – considered the city's main source of income.

Bamadou also wanted to make his way to Europe with the help of smugglers. However, the young man from Guinea gave up after a short time. He is now stranded in Agadez and warns other migrants about the increasingly brutal criminal gangs in the desert. 

"Sometimes they come with baseball bats and just start beating people. Several people even died in a migrant convoy in March. Three Senegalese, two South Americans and from Guinea," he tells DW. 

New policy leads to smuggling boom

In 2015, under pressure from the European Union, Niger's government passed a far-reaching anti-smuggling law, sent heavily armed patrols into the desert, and arrested hundreds of smugglers within a few months.

But following the military coup in 2023, the new rulers abolished the law.

"The new military leadership went through with it just one day after signing a new military agreement with Russia," says Ulf Laessing, head of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation's regional program in neighboring Mali. Laessing believes Russian influence was behind the move. 

The effects of the new Nigerien policy were swift: Just a few weeks after the law was abolished, the smuggling business in Agadez was back in full swing according to the mayor – and is still growing.

Partners in Moscow rather than Brussels

The picture is similar among Niger's neighbors. In Burkina Faso and Mali, new military governments moved closer to Moscow than Brussels. Over the same time, the regional smuggling industry saw rapid expansion in these countries, particularly in the drugs sector.

For example, authorities in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger seized about 13 kilograms (28.7 pounds) of drugs per year between 2015 and 2020. By 2022, the figure exploded to around 1.5 tonnes ― an increase of more than 11,000%, according to reports from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Cocaine glut in the desert

The latest data from 2024 shows over a tonne of cocaine was seized during a single check on the border between Senegal and Mali.

"An absolute record," says Amado Philip de Andres from the UNODC in Dakar, Senegal. According to de Andres, the Sahel's location has long made it a strategic place of interest for drug smugglers.

The region lies between producers in Latin America and consumers in Europe, which has seen soaring demand for the drug. Criminal networks have historically exploited political instability in the Sahel, but de Andres says smuggling activities have recently reached a new dimension in terms of quality.

"We are seeing increasingly sophisticated technologies. There are underwater vehicles that have half a tonne of drugs on board," he tells DW.

Most of the time, the cocaine travels towards Europe through the Sahel overland along routes controlled by rapidly growing local drug networks.

"The really big fish in the cocaine business still come from Latin America. But the middle level is now increasingly coming from West and Central Africa," de Andres adds.

The criminal networks have now acquired significant financial power in the Sahel and are laundering their dirty money in major projects throughout the region.

System of corruption and military toughness

This comes against a backdrop of corrupt officials and security forces, particularly at the local level. As a result of Europe's dwindling influence, programs to combat corruption and good governance in the Sahel have expired or been put on hold in recent years.

"Drug trafficking is giving criminal groups more and more influence over border officials and politicians with leadership positions at local level," says de Andres.

Russian promises of military force to ensure more order in the Sahel and combat criminal networks are falling far short of expectations.

"You have to bear in mind that France alone had more than 5,000 soldiers here. Even they couldn't pacify the region. The Russians have perhaps 1,500 in Mali and another 400 in Burkina Faso and Niger," Laessing tells DW.

Instead, according to Laessing, the presence of the Russian mercenary outfit Africa Corps has had the opposite effect.

"A brutality is attributed to them that has fueled the conflicts even further," he says.

On the road to narco-terrorism?

The dynamics between smugglers and jihadists are also changing due to the success of the drug networks.

The term "narco-terrorism" is increasingly used in the Sahel. According to the latest Global Terrorism Index, almost half of all victims of terrorism across the world come from the region.

Initially, the jihadists tended to be indirect beneficiaries of the drug trade, charging customs duties for trucks or taking money to escort convoys.

Now, observers say, some terrorist groups are trying to enter the lucrative business directly. In other regions, the Afghan Taliban have long been active in the opium trade and the Islamic State (IS) in Syria also produced synthetic drugs on a large scale.

According to Laessing, European states should therefore try to regain a stronger foothold in the region for their own security interests.

But due to other global trouble spots, from Ukraine to Gaza, the geopolitical effects of what is currently brewing in the Sahel are largely overlooked.

"People think these countries are not important because they are extremely poor. But this is basically the southern border of Europe," Laessing says. 

Tilla Amadou contributed reporting from Agadez

Edited by Cai Nebe