Corridor profile
7 legs · heroin · 1 under monitoring.
The southern route: jurisdictions crossed and their legal position
Maritime movement out of the Makran coast across the Indian Ocean, reaching East and Southern Africa before onward transfer. The corridor is defined by dhow traffic rather than container shipping, which puts it beyond the reach of container-profiling programmes and inside the reach of naval interdiction.
Why the legal profile of a corridor matters
A corridor is only as controlled as its most permissive crossing. That is easy to assert and hard to check, because it requires knowing what each state along the route is actually bound to do and what its own law provides — which is what this page sets out. The narrative account of how the route works is on the drug routes page; what follows here is the record, leg by leg.
Of the 7 jurisdictions on this corridor, 5 are party to all four instruments tracked on this site and 1 is not party to the Firearms Protocol. 2 carry no national instrument confirmed against a citable register, and 1 names no enforcement authority confirmed on their own government domain. Those last two are statements about what could be sourced, not about what exists — the distinction is set out under sources and methodology.
The legs
| Jurisdiction | Conventions | Firearms Protocol | FATF | Tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pakistan | 3 of 4 | not a party | Not listed | A |
| Somalia | 3 of 4 | 25 Mar 2025 | Not listed | B |
| Kenya | 4 of 4 | 5 Jan 2005 | Increased monitoring | A |
| Tanzania | 4 of 4 | 24 May 2006 | Not listed | A |
| Mozambique | 4 of 4 | 20 Sep 2006 | Not listed | B |
| Mauritius | 4 of 4 | 24 Sep 2003 | Not listed | A |
| Seychelles | 4 of 4 | 22 Jul 2002 | Not listed | A |
The instruments in force along this corridor
10 national instruments are confirmed against an official register across the 7 legs of this corridor. Read together they are the statutory basis on which anything charged along the route has to rest, and the unevenness between them is the reason a case built in one jurisdiction can fail in the next.
| Jurisdiction | Instrument | Confirmed on |
|---|---|---|
| Pakistan | 2010 Anti-Money Laundering act | fmu.gov.pk |
| Pakistan | 1997 The Control of Narcotic Substances Act | punjablaws.punjab.gov.pk |
| Pakistan | 1977 The Prevention of Smuggling act | pakistancode.gov.pk |
| Kenya | The Narcotic Drugs And Psychotropic Substances (Control) Act, 1994 | new.kenyalaw.org |
| Kenya | Legal Notice No.150 the Pharmacy and Poisons Act | parliament.go.ke |
| Kenya | Legal Notice No.151 the Dangerous Drugs Act | libraryir.parliament.go.ke |
| Tanzania | Drug Control and Enforcement (Amendment) Act, 2017 | elibrary.osg.go.tz |
| Tanzania | Drugs and Prevention of Illicit and Traffic (Drugs Act) – 1995 | repository.mof.go.tz |
| Mauritius | Dangerous drugs Act 41/2000 | unodc.org |
| Seychelles | Chapter 80 Firearms And Ammunition Act (1St | unodc.org |
Where the route is weakest on paper
Tracing. Pakistan is not party to the Firearms Protocol, so along that leg there is no treaty obligation to mark weapons at import or to keep transfer records. Where there is no treaty obligation to mark or trace weapons, a weapon crossing here can lose its documented history without anyone breaking a rule.
Domestic instrument. Somalia, Mozambique carry no national instrument confirmed against an official register in this dataset. That is a sourcing gap rather than a proven legislative one, but it has the same practical consequence for anyone trying to establish what is chargeable on that leg: the text cannot be pointed to.
Financial controls. Kenya is under FATF increased monitoring. The proceeds of a corridor move back along it, so a monitoring finding on a leg is a statement about the return path as much as about the outbound one — the mechanisms are set out under illicit finance.
Questions
Which jurisdictions does the southern route cross?
7 of the jurisdictions covered on this site: Pakistan, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Mauritius, Seychelles. Each has a record setting out its treaty position, any national instrument confirmed against an official register, and its current standing in the monitoring process.
Is the legal framework consistent along this route?
No route in this dataset is uniform. On this one, 5 of the 7 legs are party to all four instruments, 1 are outside the Firearms Protocol, and 2 carry no national instrument confirmed against a citable register. Those differences are what a corridor exploits — the traffic settles where the combination is most permissive.
Which leg of the southern route is the weakest on the record?
On the three checks this dataset can apply — Firearms Protocol coverage, a confirmed national instrument and current monitoring status — Pakistan carries the most gaps of any leg on this corridor. That is a statement about what can be verified, not a ranking of enforcement: a jurisdiction that publishes little scores worse than one that publishes badly. The record for each leg sets out which of the three is missing and why.
What does the monitoring status add to that picture?
1 of the 7 legs are currently under FATF increased monitoring: Kenya. That is a finding about the financial controls rather than about drug enforcement, and it matters on a corridor because the proceeds move back along the same relationships the goods moved forward through.