Madagascar is playing a growing and pivotal role in the dynamics of regional illicit markets, and wider illicit flows. Madagascar’s biodiversity has long been exploited by well-established environmental criminal markets.

For many years’ analysts have warned that Madagascar is also at risk of becoming a hub for international drug trafficking. These longstanding warnings are coming to fruition and the island is increasingly operating as ‘une plaque tournante’ – a  ‘turning point’ – for drugs destined particularly to the rest of the Indian Ocean region but also further afield. Madagascar’s role in regional illicit trade dynamics, including in maritime smuggling routes, remains understudied and poorly understood.

The Regional Maritime Information Fusion Centre, which is based in Madagascar, collects and analyses maritime intelligence to highlight developing maritime security risks.

The GI-TOC has recently undertaken three detailed investigations, together with numerous shorter studies, into the political economy of the illicit markets of the Indian Ocean Islands and Swahili Coast.

Speakers:

Dr. Navi Ramgolam, Deputy Director, International Liaison Officer (Mauritius), Regional Maritime Information Fusion Centre will share insight gained from ongoing maritime intelligence collection and analysis.

Trafficking Malagasy Tortoises: Vulnerabilities and illicit markets in the western Indian Ocean; and A Triangle of Vulnerability: Changing patterns of illicit trafficking off the Swahili coast, presented by Alastair Nelson, Senior Analyst, GI-TOC.

Changing Tides: Shifting patterns of drug trafficking in the Western Indian Ocean presented by Lucia Bird, Senior Analyst, GI-TOC and Julia Stanyard, Analyst, GI-TOC.