New Delhi (AFP) – They come in blister packs of 10 like any normal painkiller and can be easily purchased at roadside kiosks and street pharmacies across West Africa. Millions of tapentadol tablets from India are fueling a deadly opioid epidemic in the region. Officials and researchers tell AFP that these tablets are also being mixed with the “zombie drug” kush. The cheap pills are so potent that no regulatory authority in the world has approved them. Yet, an AFP investigation found that Indian pharmaceutical firms are flooding West Africa with these pills despite New Delhi’s promise to crack down on the trade. Some shipments were even labelled “Harmless Medicines for Human Consumption.” Customs records indicate that millions of dollars’ worth of this high-strength synthetic opioid are being shipped from India every month to Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Ghana, where even low doses of the drug are prohibited.
With opioids heavily regulated in wealthier nations following their link to one million deaths in the United States alone, some manufacturers in India—the world’s largest producer of generic drugs—are aggressively entering the African market. In a concerning development, health chiefs and researchers have reported that tapentadol is now being added to the “zombie drug” kush, which is infamous for the rapid destruction it causes to its users. Kush has already been declared a national emergency in Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Bodies are being retrieved from “the streets, markets, and slums on a daily basis,” according to Ansu Konneh, the director of mental health at Sierra Leone’s social welfare ministry. The capital Freetown alone has seen over 400 corpses collected in just three months. “They grind and mix it with kush,” Freetown-based public health researcher Ronald Abu Bangura informed AFP, remarking that tapentadol is now “being misused all over the place.” The impoverished nation is struggling to address this death and despair. AFP visited informal detox houses where addicts are sometimes chained for months in an attempt to go cold turkey. Konneh noted that 90 percent of those admitted to the few official rehabilitation centers in the country had smoked kush mixed with tapentadol or other potent opioids like nitazenes.
In February 2025, New Delhi declared a “zero-tolerance” crackdown on illegal drug trading, which included a ban on the export of tablets combining tapentadol with the muscle relaxant carisoprodol after a BBC investigation highlighted the damage they were causing in Ghana. India’s drug regulator, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO), later announced it was withdrawing all export clearances for “combinations of tapentadol…which are not approved by an importing country.” However, researchers claim that the main trade remains in pure tapentadol tablets.
Shipment records reviewed by AFP reveal that millions of dollars’ worth of these high-strength pills continue to be exported to West Africa every month. The vast majority are so potent that India officially does not permit their production without special permission. However, AFP was able to match high-strength tapentadol tablets seized in at least four West African countries with Indian export records using the manufacturers’ licence numbers. This was achieved through commercial shipment data, government seizure records, interviews, and documents obtained under India’s Right to Information transparency law.
Tapentadol tablets confiscated in Sierra Leone in December marked “Made in India” had a manufacturing licence number corresponding to Gujarat Pharmaceuticals, a company based in Godhra, Gujarat, according to images of the boxes photographed by AFP. This firm was listed in the export monitoring database Volza as an exporter of tapentadol to West Africa. Additional manufacturing licence numbers on tablets seized during a Guinean operation correspond to Merit Organics, another Gujarat-based company. Senegalese authorities also seized high-strength 250mg tapentadol tablets in November linked to McW Healthcare, based in Madhya Pradesh. A fourth company, PRG Pharma, made several shipments after New Delhi’s ban last February, labelling them as “harmless medicines.” Its director Manish Goyal is a shareholder in Maiden Pharmaceuticals, a company controlled by his father, whose cough syrup was blamed by Gambian authorities for the deaths of 69 children in 2023.
The Volza database indicates that McW Healthcare shipped numerous consignments of 250mg tablets worth over $1 million to Sierra Leone and Nigeria after the February crackdown. AFP discovered a camera repair shop at the Nigerian importer’s address in Lagos, which health authorities stated had no pharmaceutical permit, deeming the imports “illegal.” Kuwait Customs intercepted tapentadol tablets in January carried by a Beninese traveler. The packaging bore the licence number of Syncom Formulations, which AFP identified as the largest tapentadol exporter to West Africa by value, having shipped consignments worth nearly $15 million post-February, many represented as “Harmless Medicines for Human Consumption.” Benin is among the declared destinations for Syncom’s shipments.
The Indian Drug Manufacturers’ Association—the largest industry body—defended the trade, stating that “a legitimate manufacturer who has followed the procedures cannot be held responsible for what happens later in the supply chain.” Nonetheless, government officials in Nigeria and Sierra Leone informed AFP that tapentadol is illegal, while Ghana insisted it has never been permitted there.
Most individuals in Africa consume tapentadol not for recreational purposes but to endure back-breaking labor, experts say. “It energizes my body to ride day and night,” claimed motorbike taxi rider Abubakar Sesay, who barely earns enough to survive. Market porters and gold miners from Lagos to Mali use tapentadol pills to push through pain, according to NGOs. “It’s used as a performance enhancer to enable people to work long hours,” explained medical anthropologist Axel Klein of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.
Opioids have now become the second most used drug in Nigeria after cannabis. Femi Babafemi of the country’s NDLEA anti-drug agency noted that two billion high-strength pills were seized in 2023 and 2024. “Kidnappers, terrorists, and bandits use these drugs to facilitate their nefarious activities,” he added, noting that police also link jihadist fighters like Boko Haram to its use “for courage.” The pills have even become a form of currency in kidnapping ransoms, with Babafemi stating that one tablet costs less than a meal in impoverished areas. Boluwatife Owoyemi of YouthRISE Nigeria reported that users take it “for lots of strength…and as an appetite suppressant…until they secure money for food.”
Tapentadol tablets come with brands such as TramaKing, Super Royal 200, and Tamol-X, making them appear medicinal, Klein pointed out. “Consumers in West Africa are much more naive than elsewhere,” he stated, highlighting a lack of regulatory enforcement to safeguard them. “This creates opportunities for unscrupulous Indian companies to sell products that are problematic, dangerous, harmful, or outright illegal to African nations,” remarked Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution with extensive experience studying opioid flows. “Africa presents a low-end market of opportunities,” she added. “It is a prime situation for trafficking networks from India to hook people.”
Ninety percent of the world’s tramadol seizures in the last decade occurred in West and Central Africa, according to a new report from the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. India designated the opioid a controlled narcotic in 2018, yet the report indicates that tapentadol has now “replaced or supplemented” tramadol in several West African nations. Lab tests in Sierra Leone revealed that pills sold as tramadol were actually tapentadol. Though tapentadol is often sold on the street as tramadol, it is actually two to three times stronger and significantly more dangerous, experts argue.
The export of tramadol from Indian pharmaceutical companies to West Africa began about 15 years ago, often with potency levels that exceeded safe human consumption standards. Felbab-Brown stated that although this potent tramadol could not be sold domestically, Indian manufacturers seemed indifferent to how it stimulated substance-use disorders in exporting markets. This dangerous trend is now being repeated with even more potent tapentadol, driven by “poor law enforcement and regulatory controls” and a “sense of impunity.”
Tapentadol’s complicated name and confusion with tramadol have further aided its ability to go unnoticed. Nearly three-quarters of tapentadol exports to West Africa since India’s crackdown have consisted of high-strength 225mg and 250mg pills. Andrew Somogyi, a pharmacology professor at the University of Adelaide, expressed uncertainty about any countries that have sanctioned the production of 225mg tapentadol tablets. He questioned the rationale for such strength unless it serves to circumvent regulatory and commercial restrictions. Dr. Viranchi Shah of the Indian Drug Manufacturers’ Association stressed a “shared responsibility of all key stakeholders” to address the drug’s misuse.
India’s drug regulator, the CDSCO, is responsible for issuing export clearances and informed AFP that it had “no record” of granting them for consignments of 225 or 250mg tapentadol. They did not respond to further inquiries. Jaydip Patel of Gujarat Pharmaceuticals, whose tapentadol tablets were confiscated in Sierra Leone, insisted that their exports were conducted legally, claiming that “the importer provided us with an authorisation letter.” He mentioned that Indian manufacturers transitioned from exporting tramadol to tapentadol because “tapentadol is easier to export as it is not classified as a narcotic.”
When AFP visited Gujarat Pharmaceuticals’ facilities in Godhra in January, they appeared abandoned, with charred tablets scattered along the ground alongside ashes from a recent fire. The other Indian firms did not respond to AFP’s inquiries.
Tragically, children have now begun using tapentadol. Ghana’s Food and Drugs Authority stated it had “never issued any permit for the manufacture or importation of tapentadol of any strength.” Nigeria’s National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) affirmed that tapentadol is neither registered nor authorized in the country, reaffirm
© 2024 AFP
