Cape Verde only war for independence against Portugal between 1974 and 1975, the efforts of the Caboverdean Armed Forces have now been turned to combating international drug trafficking. In 2007, together with the Cape Verdean Police, they carried out Operation Flying Launch ("Operacão Lancha Voador"a), a successful operation to put an end to a drug trafficking group which smuggled cocaine from Colombia to the Netherlands and Germany using the country as a reorder point. The operation took more than three years, being a secret operation during the first two years, and ended in 2010. Although located in Africa, Cape Verde has always
Cape Verde at every level of the economy, which has led it to link its currency first to the Portuguese escudo and, in 1999, to the euro. On 23 June 2008 Cape Verde became the 153rd member of the WTO. In early January 2018, the government announced that the minimum wage would be raised to 13,000 CVE (US$140 or EUR 130) per month, from 11,000 CVE, which was effective in mid-January 2018. The European Commission's total allocation for the period of 2008–2013 foreseen for Cape Verde to address "poverty reduction, in particular in rural and periurban areas where women are heading the