ORGANISED CRIME WAR STEPPED UP

Law enforcement and intelligence agencies have been given an extra ?90m
($128m) to step up the fight against organised crime within the UK and in
co-operation with international bodies and other nations.

Charles Clarke, minister in the Home Office [internal affairs department],
said the money would be used in a co-ordinated programme by all the
agencies involved to crack down on drug trafficking and the smuggling of
illegal immigrants.

A new strategy developed by ministers and department chiefs over the last
year will see an increasing number of customs officers working alongside
officers of MI6, the exterior intelligence service, helping to disrupt the
operations of drugs barons at source and in transit.

The new fighting fund to be used between 2001-04 will allocate ?67.5m to
anti-drugs trafficking operations and the rest to curbing "people smuggling".

MI5, the interior security service, and MI6 are increasing their
involvement in anti-drug operations, an area that was previously the
preserve of customs and the domestic police services.

MI5 and MI6 will get a total of ?21.8m in addition to their secret budgets.
While customs will get an extra ?23.6m, and the immigration service an
extra ?5.1m, the Foreign Office has been given ?11.4m to help train and
equip law agencies in South America, the Middle East, Asia and Eastern
Europe who are in drug-producing and transit areas.

Law enforcement and intelligence chiefs were told by Tony Blair, prime
minister, at a secret summit last December, to step up efforts against
organised crime.

The increased funding is part of a series of announcements planned by
ministers in the lead-up to an expected June general election. It partly
reflects Home Office efforts to deliver a credible policy on asylum seekers
- - which has been a battleground for the British media - while tackling the
growth in organised illegal immigration and its links with the drugs trade.

* Perry Wacker, a Dutch truck driver, was on Thursday sentenced to 14 years
in jail by a south of England court for the manslaughter of 58 Chinese
illegal immigrants found dead in his vehicle at the UK channel port of
Dover in June last year after they had been transported by ferry. Mr
Wacker's codefendant, Ying Guo, a UK resident of Chinese descent, was
sentenced to six years' imprisonment for conspiring to smuggle illegal
immigrants into the UK. Although found guilty, the two defendants played
only a small part in a human smuggling operation spanning several countries
and involving a "snakehead" criminal syndicate operated from China.

According to British police, criminal gangs often plan to hold illegal
immigrants in secret locations in the UK until their families in China pay
an outstanding fee or loans borrowed from the gang at exorbitant rates.