The issues of cross-border criminalities in Africa is an inevitable phenomenon. To the criminals, it’s a lucrative business for survival, while the government terms it a crime against humanity. Cross-border criminalities are among the urgent challenges facing Cameroon with its immediate neighbors in Africa. The North west and the Adamawa border of Nigeria and Cameroon have in recent decades faced challenges from various criminalities such as illegal migration, smuggling, cattle rustling, kidnapping, drug trafficking, arms smuggling and the bribery of border security forces in both Cameroon and Nigeria borderland. The focus of the study is to examine how this crime have damaged trusts between Cameroon and Nigeria, it shows that criminals groups often use the border to escape, hide and get weapons to supplies. The trans-border crimes have led to accusation, military tensions and the diplomatic disagreements between the two states from 1990-2022. At the same time, the two governments have tried to work together through joint border patrols, security meetings and agreements to fight crimes. The paper further illustrates the repercussion of cross- border criminalities in the North west and the Adamawa on the socio-economic and political atmosphere of both Cameroon and Nigeria. The effects of the crimes are visible in the borderland including the hinterland of Cameroon and Nigeria. The methodology applicable here is the qualitative model with the consultations of primary and secondary sources such as books, articles, theses and oral interviews related to cross-border criminalities as our sources of information.

Keywords: Border, Borderland, Criminality, smuggling, security challenges, illegal Migration, Kidnapping and Cattle Rustling.