Vice Adm. Jeffrey Anderson, commander of U.S. 6th Fleet, speaks with reporters in Praia, Cabo Verde, after the opening ceremony for Obangame Express. The 14-day exercise in West Africa kicked off on May 5, 2025, and includes 28 countries. (Alison Bath/Stars and Stripes)
PRAIA, Cabo Verde — West African countries are adapting their interdiction strategies as drug traffickers and other criminals turn to sophisticated technology to evade detection, U.S. officials said this week.
Learning how to counter those subversive efforts is part of this year’s Obangame Express in West Africa, said Navy Capt. Harish Patel, director of the exercise sponsored by U.S. Africa Command and run by U.S. 6th Fleet.
“Some of the illegal actors have gotten smarter with the way that their vessels are tracked,” Patel said.
West African countries are seeing vessels attempt to avoid sanctions by transferring their fuel or oil at sea to a waiting ship.
The practice, known as illegal bunkering, is worrisome to African countries for several reasons, including potential spills and environmental impacts, U.S. and African officials said.
Authorities typically use data transmitted by ships through their automatic identification system as the primary way of monitoring what vessels are coming in and out of a country’s territorial waters, Patel said.
Some ships turn off the AIS or fake their location to appear to be elsewhere, a practice known as spoofing.
U.S. 6th Fleet flagship USS Mount Whitney arrives May 4, 2025, in Praia, Cabo Verde in support of Obangame Express 2025. The 14-day exercise in West Africa kicked off on May 5 and includes 28 countries. (Joseph Buliavac/U.S. Navy)
During this year’s Obangame Express, participating countries will work to improve their ability to identify spoofing by using a web-based mapping tool to view and track ships, among other technology, he said.
The 14th iteration of the exercise kicked off in Cabo Verde, also known as Cape Verde, on Monday with some 28 countries taking part. Among them are Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Congo, Denmark, France, Gabon, Ghana, Italy, Nigeria, Senegal, Spain and the U.K.
Participants plan to experiment with surface drones to detect and track ships suspected of smuggling oil or fuel, trafficking arms or people, piracy and illegal fishing, among other illicit activities.
They’ll also spend some time in the classroom to study procedure for boarding vessels, making arrests and seizing contraband. The lessons include mock boardings for practice.
An understanding of applicable laws will help African countries ensure successful prosecution of criminals, who may travel across the maritime borders of several countries and be caught in another, said Maj. Felix Rodriguez Cartagena, a judge advocate for the Air Force.
The collaboration also will help point out legal challenges. For example, some countries may have trouble prosecuting a flagless vessel because their legal code doesn’t cover the violation as a crime, Cartagena said.
Patel said those focuses, along with other activities during Obangame, could potentially have a worldwide impact.
Illicit activities in West Africa are often conducted by transnational criminal organizations, whose pursuits cross the Atlantic, he said.
“It is all interconnected,” Patel said. “And to see how our African partners are dealing with that ... and then bringing it ultimately to a legal finish is very interesting to me and interesting to the United States in terms of our homeland defense.”
