Madar (Ouagadougou) - Burkina Faso's customs administration on Tuesday, 20 October 2026 presented the results of anti-smuggling operation "Manya", carried out from 10 July to 15 October 2026, during which goods with a total estimated value of 10,859,217,954 CFA francs were seized, news site Lefaso.net reported.
The opioid tapentadol made up the largest share, with 4,234,935 tablets valued at 8,334,353,750 CFA francs, along with 11,087 kilograms of counterfeit medicines, according to figures presented to the press at the Ouaga Inter customs warehouse.
Seizures also included 533 tonnes of smuggled fertiliser worth 266.5 million CFA francs, 490 tonnes of rice, 2,686 cans of cooking oil, 2,480 parcels of pesticides, 19 vehicles, 10 containers of mercury, 91 bags of cyanide, 2,000 grams of cocaine and 344,000 cigarettes, as well as 15,760 sticks of explosives and 25,000 detonating cords.
"We chose to step on the accelerator," said Director General of Customs Yves Kafando, predicting that many smugglers and "fake importers" would go out of business. Lieutenant Colonel Tedono Aristide Alira, deputy head of military engineering, said intercepting the explosives kept them from "ill-intentioned people, notably terrorist groups", adding: "One cannot imagine the number of lives saved by this operation."
Arsène Ouédraogo, head of the Faso-FDA regulator, said the seizures "send a chill down the spine" and that samples of the medicines and food would be analysed. The explosives were handed to military engineers and the fertiliser symbolically to SOBIMAP, the state company holding the import monopoly, pending a decision on releasing it to farmers.
