Interstate 10

Nickname for a drug smuggling route that connects South America and west Africa along the 10th parallel north of the Equator.

According to The Los Angeles Times, police officers from seven African nations traveled to Bogota recently to receive instruction from counter-narcotics officials from Britain, Latin America, Spain and the United States. Chris Kraul reported:

The flow of cocaine to west Africa from the northern and eastern shores of South America is increasing so fast that counter-narcotics officials call the latitudinal corridor, along the 10th parallel north, that connects the two continents “Interstate 10.”

The weakness of police forces in west Africa is a big reason that in the last four to five years the region has become a booming hub for Colombian, Bolivian and Peruvian cocaine headed toward Europe. Another is that as cocaine demand in the United States has leveled off in recent years, it has risen sharply in Europe.

Reporting on a spike in cocaine production across Latin America, The Guardian cited a United Nations World Drug Report which estimated that at least 50 metric tons of cocaine is smuggled along Interstate 10 each year.