clipped from: english.aljazeera.net   
When local fishermen discovered the packets of white powder floating off the coast of the tiny West African country of Guinea-Bissau three years ago there was much confusion

"Some people thought it was flour," one fishermen says. "Others thought it was fertiliser to put on their tomato plants, others thought it was something we put in dried fish."

The strange powder was in fact cocaine. One man painted his boat with it. Another used it to mark out a football pitch.

The fishermen were unaware that they had discovered some of the first evidence of a major shift in international drug trafficking.

Latin American drug cartels are finding it harder to send their goods directly to Europe without being intercepted. So the cartels are plotting a new course, straight across to Africa.

The fifth poorest country in the world has been blighted for decades by civil war, coups and cholera.

A local man, who asked not to be identified, shows Al Jazeera flashy signs of drug wealth among the ramshackle streets