Guinea-Bissau police have arrested the head of the air traffic control tower at the country's main airport

Guinea-Bissau police have arrested the head of the air traffic control tower at the country's main airport after the seizure of a plane suspected of carrying cocaine, a senior police officer said on Sunday.The tiny former Portuguese colony has become a major hub for smugglers trafficking Colombian cocaine to Europe due to its poorly policed Atlantic shoreline and widespread corruption in an ill-resourced public administration, anti-drugs experts say.Last week authorities seized two planes suspected of being used by smugglers at the main international airport in the capital Bissau."The head of the control tower and his deputy were arrested at work. They were questioned and detained in the cells of the judicial police," a senior officer of the force, which covers drugs crimes, told Reuters on Sunday.
The men, who are yet to appear in court, have not been charged.The officer declined to be named due to the sensitive nature of drugs investigations in Bissau, which U.N. officials have said risks being reduced to a "narcostate" by Latin American drugs syndicates.The judicial police -- a branch of the country's security charged with fighting drug trafficking -- had arrested the three-man Venezuelan crew of one of the planes, an executive Gulfstream jet, on Saturday, the head of the force's drugs unit said.The Gulfstream's arrival at Bissau airport last weekend, having apparently flown in from Venezuela, triggered a stand-off between police who wanted to search it and the army, which blocked access to the plane, diplomats said.
International drug experts believe members of Guinea-Bissau's various security services facilitate the passage of tonnes of cocaine through one of the world's poorest countries, one of a number of West African countries used by traffickers.
Police in nearby Sierra Leone have arrested more than 60 people in the past week, including three Venezuelans and eight other foreigners mostly also from Latin America, and seized 700 kg (1,545 lb) of cocaine.The United Nations said 6.5 tonnes of cocaine were seized in West Africa last year. Experts say the seizures represent a tiny percentage of what actually passes through the region.Guinea-Bissau has been regarded as a soft touch for smugglers in part because its police lack funding and basic equipment, making them no match for well-armed and powerful international drugs-smuggling networks with access to planes and speed boats. Experts say widespread corruption is also a factor.
Some Latin American smugglers and their local accomplices arrested during previous seizures have been freed by Bissau's judiciary, which critics say is weak and corrupt.