Voice of America News reports on the smuggling situation in the Sahara Desert, as smugglers transport goods ranging from counterfeit cigarettes to cocaine.

From VOA News:

The Sahara desert has long been an attractive tax-free zone for entrepreneurs. But getting products through the mostly inhospitable and hostile terrain is hard. There are no auto repair stores for spare parts. Little water. No signs. Everything looks the same.

Mohamed Ekisi, a former customs director in Niger, says nothing can get through the desert without ethnic Tuareg nomads.

Ekisi says the desert Tuareg nomads have few job prospects, so tourism and smuggling are two ways they survive. Ekisi says the Tuareg have transported everything from migrants to fuel, pasta to powdered milk, fake famous-brand cigarettes to, increasingly, cocaine.

One smuggler interviewed stated that he makes $2,000 in gas smuggling.  Other smugglers can make up to $10,000 smuggling drugs from Algeria to Sudan.

The Black Markets in Africa are listed at $1.10 billion.