Contraband Coffee: Illegal Economy and Coffee Smuggling in East and Central Africa, ca. 1950-1980

Abstract

The article discusses the historical context and evolution of coffee smuggling in East and Central Africa from 1950 to 1980. It provides a brief description of coffee production and marketing and the growth of smuggling in the 1960s and 1970s, arguing that a well-established smuggling culture existed in northwestern Tanzania and southern Uganda with connections to Burundi, Rwanda and Congo/Zaire. It argues that the smuggling subcultures emerged in these areas near the borders in the mid-1970s.