In the port of Tema, where cargo ships unload everything from grain to electronics, Senior Narcotics Officer Francisca Ziniel knows the hidden corners of a vessel better than most. She leads rummaging teams from Ghana's Narcotics Control Commission (NACOC), searching engine rooms and ballast tanks for the concealed drugs that fuel transnational organised crime along the West African coast.
"Each vessel has its own rhythm, its own normal," she explains. When something is off, her instincts have to catch it, even a faint, unfamiliar scent in an engine room.
A few years ago, she was a junior officer with sharp instincts and a quiet determination. Today, she is an IMO certified trainer with a regional network that stretches from Accra to Kingston - and one of the few women in a field still overwhelmingly dominated by men.
That trajectory has been shaped, in large part, by SEACOP. The EU-funded Seaport Cooperation Project trained Francisca in vessel rummaging, then selected her in 2023 for a high-level "train-the-trainer" programme in Barbados, opening a door into international maritime security cooperation.
"SEACOP didn't just train me," she says. The project saw her potential, nurtured it, and gave her a platform to grow and lead.
She now pays that forward.
Francisca trains fellow officers in Ghana and across the region, leads boarding operations at Tema, and speaks at international forums about why women belong in port security, not as a quota, but as an operational asset. "You don't have to out-muscle the job," she says. "You have to outlast it."
Endurance, an eye for detail, an instinct for reading a crew: these are the skills that catch what others miss.
Her story is one of many SEACOP has helped write across Latin America, the Caribbean and West Africa. It is also a reminder of what targeted, sustained EU investment in people -not just equipment- can deliver at the front line of the fight against illicit maritime trafficking.
About SEACOP
The Seaport Cooperation Project (SEACOP) is an EU-funded initiative that has been supporting the fight against illicit maritime trafficking since 2010. Now in its sixth phase, SEACOP VI (2023–2026) works across 29 countries in Latin America, the Caribbean and West Africa to disrupt the transatlantic routes that move cocaine, cannabis, arms, ammunition and protected species concealed within legitimate maritime trade.
The project strengthens national authorities' capacity to detect and intercept suspicious vessels, supports Maritime Intelligence Units (MIUs) and Joint Maritime Control Units (JMCUs) on the ground, and fosters cross-regional intelligence sharing through structures such as the Special Response Group (GRES) and the Trans Regional Intelligence Group (TRIG+). It has also enabled landmark inter-regional operations, including Operation Remora.
To date, SEACOP has trained more than 2,400 officers, supported over 170 seizures across the three regions, and signed 31 Memoranda of Understanding with partner authorities. It is implemented by Expertise France and FIAP, in close cooperation with MAOC-N, FRONTEX and customs and law enforcement agencies from EU Member States.
SEACOP is part of the EU Global Threats programme's portfolio in the fight against organised crime, funded by the European Commission's Service for Foreign Policy Instruments (FPI).
Details
- Publication date
- 1 June 2026
- Threat area
- Fight against Organised Crime