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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Sco: Smugglers target 'easy' airports
Scotland on Sunday
Sunday 28 May 2000 Subj: UK: Sco: Smugglers target 'easy' airports Date: 28 May, 2000 Source: Scotland on Sunday Smugglers target 'easy' airports By Peter Laing CUSTOMS officers are seeing a huge increase in the amount of drugs being brought into Scotland by air, the latest figures show. The value of drugs seized at Scottish airports has increased six-and-a-half times in the past year, Scotland on Sunday can reveal. The value of cocaine and cannabis intercepted at Glasgow and Edinburgh totalled £5.4m compared with £830,000 the previous year. Customs officers recovered 45kgs of almost pure cocaine at Glasgow and almost 200kgs of cannabis at Edinburgh. The massive increases are being blamed largely on South African drugs gangs targeting Edinburgh with cannabis, and cocaine smugglers in North and South America exploiting recently expanded air links to Glasgow. In both cases, the smugglers are believed to have switched to Scottish airports because they perceive security checks as being less stringent than in England. At the same time, the motorway network in central Scotland allows for the easy movement of drugs south. Customs officials, who have blitzed airport smugglers in Scotland over the past year, have also reported big increases in the amount of illegal weapons and bootleg tobacco coming into the country. Around 200 illegal weapons - including stun guns, pepper spray and banned knives - were seized at Glasgow and Edinburgh airports. That is double the amount of weapons recovered in the previous year. They also confiscated 4.2 million illegally imported cigarettes, more than a third up on the previous year. Dave Clark, deputy head of Customs in Scotland, said they had doubled the resources dedicated to tackling smugglers at Edinburgh and Glasgow airports during the financial year 1999-2000. Despite that, they were sometimes surprised at the sheer amount of illegal drugs, weapons and tobacco, hidden in the luggage of passengers arriving in the country. The total number of seizures of all kinds for the year was 1,100, almost three times the 1998-1999 figure of 400. Clark said: "Drugs are very much our priority and last year saw the largest value of seizures ever."
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