having fought their 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 voadora"), 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.