Subj: Scotland: Cuts 'leave coast clear for drug smugglers'



Date: 22 Sep, 1998



Source: The Scotsman



    



Cuts 'leave coast clear for drug smugglers' 

Customs say 50% fall in its yearly drugs haul is a 

statistical blip, not a failure  

JIM WILSON  Crime Correspondent  



THE value of drugs seized by front-line customs officers in 

Scotland has fallen by 50 per cent, fuelling fears that 

cutbacks have left the coastline dangerously exposed to 

smugglers. 



Union leaders claimed yesterday that the closure of rural 

offices had encouraged organised criminals to exploit 

thousands of miles of unguarded coast to bring drugs ashore. 



The annual report of the HM Customs and Excise Scotland 

Collection reveals that officers seized drugs with an 

estimated value of £1.67 million in 1997-98 while recoveries 

in the year before totalled almost £3.3 million. 



However, a spokesman for the customs service claimed 

yesterday that the statistics were deceptive because cocaine 

worth £2.6 million had been washed up on South Uist in 1996 

and, discounting that recovery, the number and value of 

drugs seizures last year had increased. 



Tom Watt, the west of Scotland branch secretary of the 

Public Commercial Services Union, said that other 

enforcement agencies had recently reported record seizures 

and the dropping value of customs' recoveries was not 

surprising given the closure of offices around Scotland's 

2,300 miles of coastline. 



"The eyes and ears of the service have effectively been 

removed," Mr Watt said. "Officers, often with years of local 

knowledge and contacts, have gone and not been replaced. 



"People living on remote coastline might not tell a stranger 

about seeing a suspicious landing or meeting strangers with 

no plausible reason for being there but might have 

previously told a familiar officer." 



Another three customs offices, in Campbeltown, Stornoway and 

Kirkwall, will shut next year to complete the rolling 

programme of closures and cutbacks that have dramatically 

reduced the number of officers working in the north and west 

of Scotland. 



The fall in customs seizures emerged as most enforcement 

agencies working against drug traffickers continued to 

report large year-on-year increases in drug recoveries. 



Last week, the Scottish Crime Squad announced that the 

street value of seizures recovered by the élite police unit 

had trebled in three years to a record £8.6 million last 

year. 



The Scottish Drugs Forum said yesterday that seizures could 

not be used to gauge accurately the volume of the drugs 

reaching the market but a spokesman said that the street 

price of heroin, for example, had remained largely static 

since 1991, suggesting no drop in supply. 



A spokesman for the Scottish customs service said that the 

closure of rural offices could not be linked to the falling 

value of the drugs recovered by officers, adding that 

operations against international smuggling cartels often 

involved months of sur-veillance and the long-term 

cultivation of underworld sources. 



"Tip-offs from our rural offices rarely led to drugs 

seizures. The gathering of effective intelligence against 

major smuggling operations is now by necessity more complex 

than that," he said. 



The spokesman said that removing the 13kg of cocaine found 

by accident on South Uist from the 1996 figures meant that 

Scottish customs officers last year seized more consignments 

with a higher street value. 



He also stressed that major drugs operations were conducted 

by the customs' National Investigation Service, which also 

reported record drugs recoveries last year, with drugs 

valued at more than £650 million being seized in 1997, 

compared with £510 million the year before. 



Dick Kellaway, the investigation arm's chief officer, said 

that the impact of seizures on organised smuggling 

operations could not be overestimated. 



For every £1 million of drugs seized, a further £2.5 million 

on average are kept out of the United Kingdom," said Mr 

Kellaway. 



Specialist officers deployed in rapid action anti-smuggling 

teams were now used by Scottish customs to respond to 

intelligence, travelling quickly to secluded locations which 

were suspected of being used for landing drugs. 



A number of big cannabis consignments worth millions of 

pounds have been successfully intercepted in recent years 

but one Scottish customs source yesterday said there had 

been few such victories in the war against hard drugs. 



"Boats loaded with tons and tons of cannabis are relatively 

easy targets compared to a guy rowing ashore with a 

briefcase full of heroin but you have to ask which one does 

most damage," he said.