Africa Region

Background

OPDAT’s efforts in Africa bolster U.S. national security and protect commercial interests, including access to rare earth minerals. OPDAT works with local counterparts to address threats to the U.S., including cybercrime, illegal production and trafficking of narcotics, and terrorism. These efforts counter malign, foreign influence in Africa and contribute to maintaining a safe environment for U.S. trade and investments in Africa.

OPDAT Africa works across the continent, with current targeted bilateral assistance in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Senegal, and Zambia. OPDAT likewise stations RLAs at DOD Africa Command (AFRICOM) in Stuttgart, Germany and The International Institute for Justice and the Rule of Law in Malta (IIJ); both organize regional programming across Africa. OPDAT Africa programs are funded by the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Defense.

The scourge of terrorism has affected numerous countries throughout Africa threatening U.S. strategic security and commercial interests and partnerships, killing and maiming thousands of innocents, displacing millions, and creating further instability in fragile areas. At the same time, many countries in Africa seek assistance developing more effective responses to other transnational terrorist and criminal threats and addressing the historical neglect of justice sector institutions. In some countries, legislation is antiquated and inadequate to support modern criminal justice practices. In others, legislation may be robust, but procedures and practices are dated or dysfunctional.

OPDAT provides advice and technical assistance to African prosecutors, defense counsel, judges, law enforcement officers, and related justice sector personnel. OPDAT improves their ability to investigate, prosecute, and adjudicate criminal cases involving complex, transnational, organized crime, including terrorism, terror financing, money laundering, piracy, the illicit trafficking of narcotics, arms, and weapons of mass destruction. OPDAT programs provide immediate and relevant technical assistance to our African counterparts to enable them to respond to current threats in a manner that supports sustainable improvements in justice sector institutions. OPDAT programs support fundamental changes that are consistent with modern norms of criminal investigation, prosecution, and adjudication.

Over the past several years, OPDAT expertise has advanced the drafting and adoption of new legislation and operational policies in areas such as criminal charging decisions, case management, money laundering, and cybercrime, civilian-military cooperation in combatting violent extremism, electronic evidence, plea agreements, and pretrial detention.  OPDAT facilitation of meetings across sectors advanced civilian-military cooperation in combatting violent extremism in West Africa. OPDAT technical assistance contributed to the prosecution of terrorists across the region, including in cases where Americans were victims of terrorism. Importantly, OPDAT efforts normalized regional and international information sharing and cooperation in investigating and combatting transnational crimes and terrorism, including through mutual legal assistance protocols. OPDAT technical assistance on pretrial detention procedures has accelerated resolution of cases.

Overview of OPDAT’s Work in Africa

As the U.S. fights cartels in Central and South America, the cartels continue to counter U.S. efforts and strengthen their power, in part, by increasing their activities in Africa.  This has recently included recruiting African nationals to produce illegal narcotics and precursor chemicals in Africa and sending money back to Central and South America to further fund the cartels. OPDAT RLAs support African counter-narcotics investigations by fostering cooperation and information sharing with U.S. law enforcement and providing expert assistance on African investigations and cases that impact U.S. national security interests. Currently, prosecutors in Africa are conducting at least seven separate investigations in four different jurisdictions into Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG) and Cartel de Sinaloa (CDS) activity. Both Mexican cartels have been designated terrorist organizations by the U.S.

OPDAT has created opportunities for countries in Africa to evaluate perceived links among recent narcotics cases throughout Africa. In May 2025, OPDAT in partnership with U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) hosted an event for law enforcement participants from several African countries to share detailed information on their cases involving known cartel members operating in Africa. The case information shared at this event demonstrated clear regional links among cartel activities and led to immediate action by African law enforcement to cooperate and further investigations across borders.

Other OPDAT efforts to support regional information sharing and provide technical assistance have included OPDAT RLAs in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, and AFRICOM through DOD AFRICOM’s annual Flintlock and Counterterrorism Roundtable exercises. These exercises convene civilian and military justice sector actors to exchange information on regional terrorism threats and share best practices on a combined military and justice sector response to terrorism. Such exercises address the disconnect OPDAT has observed between security forces who initially encounter and detain terrorism suspects and the investigators and prosecutors who bring them to justice. These exercises are designed to specifically address and remedy this lack of coordination.

Also, OPDAT coordinates multilateral justice-sector assistance efforts through the International Institute of Justice (IIJ). IIJ programs across Africa have addressed trafficking in persons, battlefield evidence and prosecution of returning terrorist fighters, mutual legal assistance protocols, anti-money laundering, and countering terrorist financing.   

In West Africa, OPDAT has emphasized the need for proactive investigations and prosecutions that rely on close collaboration between police, gendarmerie, and investigating magistrates. In some countries, OPDAT has supported counterterrorism task forces, interdisciplinary technical assistance on investigating terrorist organizations and terrorism financing, and the promotion of cross-border collaboration.

In both West and East Africa, OPDAT has posted career USDOJ prosecutors, supported by seasoned U.S. law enforcement personnel, to serve as resources for counterparts who investigate and prosecute some of the largest terrorist incidents on the continent. Concurrently, OPDAT RLAs and ILAs have worked alongside foreign counterparts to develop better processes for addressing the backlog of detained terrorist suspects.

Reductions in unnecessary detention have cascading benefits throughout the justice system, reducing overcrowding in the prisons and limiting exposure of vulnerable detainees to violent extremist rhetoric in those prisons, and reducing caseloads to permit police, prosecutors, and judges to focus on fewer and more important cases. In countries like Kenya and Ghana, OPDAT support for targeted programs to reduce overcrowding have not only seen immediate reductions in pretrial detention, but the focus and processes have assisted foreign colleagues to better understand the mechanisms that have been causing the problems and to work together to solve those problems.