Indian pharmaceutical companies are still exporting millions of dollars’ worth of powerful opioid drugs to West Africa despite a promised government crackdown, according to an investigation published by AFP on Thursday.
The report said officials and health experts across the region have linked the drugs to a worsening addiction crisis, particularly involving a dangerous street substance known as “kush.”
AFP said it traced high-strength tapentadol tablets seized in at least four West African countries to Indian manufacturers through licence numbers found on the products and matched with export records.
Researchers quoted in the investigation said the opioids are increasingly being mixed into kush, a highly addictive drug that has triggered public health emergencies in countries such as Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The Director of Mental Health at Sierra Leone’s Ministry of Social Welfare, Ansu Konneh, described the trend as “very alarming.”
According to him, bodies linked to kush abuse were being recovered daily from “streets, markets and slums,” especially in the capital, Freetown.
Konneh disclosed that more than 400 corpses were collected in Freetown within three months and claimed that about 90 per cent of patients admitted to the country’s limited rehabilitation centres had consumed kush mixed with tapentadol or other synthetic opioids such as nitazenes.
India had announced a “zero-tolerance” policy against illegal drug exports in February 2025 after a BBC investigation revealed the harmful impact of opioid combinations being shipped into Ghana.
Following that investigation, India’s drug regulator, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation, banned the export of tablets combining tapentadol with the muscle relaxant carisoprodol.
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The regulator also stated that export approvals for unapproved tapentadol combinations would be withdrawn.
However, AFP reported that the larger trade involved pure high-strength tapentadol tablets, which researchers said continued to enter West African markets in large quantities.
Shipment records reviewed by AFP reportedly showed millions of dollars’ worth of the drugs still being exported from India to the region every month.
The investigation said the pills are increasingly being used as performance-enhancing substances among labourers engaged in physically demanding jobs, while many users eventually become addicted.
Researchers further stated that tapentadol has gradually replaced or supplemented tramadol — another opioid widely abused across West Africa.
Although often sold as tramadol on the streets, experts cited in the report said tapentadol is two to three times stronger.
AFP added that India’s drug regulator claimed it had “no record” of approving exports involving 225mg and 250mg tapentadol consignments, though it reportedly did not respond to further inquiries.