FIVE MEN BEING QUESTIONED OVER DRUG SEIZURE

Five men, including a father and son, are still being questioned by gardai
about the seizure of 6 kg of heroin in Dublin on Monday. The men have links
to drugs trafficking gangs in Glasgow and Liverpool.

Gardai have also arrested a man in his 30s from Ronanstown in west Dublin.

The men are being held in Store Street and Kilmainham stations and can be
kept in custody for seven days without charge under the 1996 Drug
Trafficking Act.

More than 30 officers from the National Drugs Unit and the drugs unit in
Store Street took part in the operation, which lasted more than three months.

It is believed there was intelligence collaboration with British police,
although the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency has declined to confirm it
had been in contact with the Garda.

The haul, valued at UKP 2 million, is the third-biggest seizure of the drug
by gardai. Despite the success, gardai in Dublin said yesterday it was
unlikely that the supply of the drug in the city would be seriously curtailed.

Glasgow has a chronic heroin addiction problem with more than 90
drug-related deaths last year. There are frequent outbreaks of violence
between drug gangs, often involving firearms.

In May last year, 12 heroin users died in the city from the same
contaminated heroin that killed eight addicts in Dublin. The Department of
Health exchanged information with the Scottish National Diseases
Surveillance Centre.

Both the Dublin and Glasgow addicts died due to "an unusual organism" in a
batch of "bad heroin" last May and June. Glasgow and Dublin City Coroners'
courts recorded the same verdict for the deaths.

The addict deaths were due to clostridium novii, a strain of a bacterium
which was resistant to the drugs in common use at the time.

Both cities share similar sets of problems. Heroin addiction spread from
the inner city parts of Glasgow and Dublin to the deprived suburban housing
estates where criminals formerly involved in robbery and racketeering moved
into drug trafficking because of the huge profits.

Last year senior officials from the Scottish Assembly travelled to Dublin
to examine this State's anti-drugs and criminal assets legislation.
Similarly, the British Home Office is emulating the Criminal Assets Bureau
(CAB) and supporting legislation.

The Garda operation which led to the seizure on Monday night is further
evidence of the growing links between drugs intelligence units. Senior
Garda sources say there is greatly increased liaison between national and
regional police forces in the EU.

Gardai have carried out preliminary tests on the heroin and have yet to
establish its purity.

Almost all heroin coming into this country is of the brown variety from
Pakistan as opposed to the China white of the golden triangle in South-east
Asia. The heroin is taken across Europe by mainly Turkish smugglers and
enters Britain through the Channel Tunnel, where it is further distributed
to British cities. Much of the heroin coming into Britain then travels
north to Liverpool, Manchester and then to Glasgow and Dublin.

Liverpool is reputedly one of the cheapest places to buy heroin in Britain.
It is estimated that 1 kg of heroin sells for between UKP 70,000 and UKP
75,000 on Merseyside, whereas in Ireland it can sell for up to UKP 300,000.

The link between the Dublin drugs trade and Lancashire is well established.
Officers from the Garda National Drugs Unit (GNDU) using intelligence from
police in Manchester seized 22 kg of heroin on October 31st, 1998 - the
largest seizure in the history of the State.

The traffickers travelled by ferry from Liverpool, one car disembarking in
North Wall, the other two in Dun Laoghaire. In May 1999 two Manchester men
received six-year sentences after admitting possession of 18.5 kg of this
seizure. One of the men is to have his sentence reviewed in October.

A month before, on September 3rd, 1998, officers from the National Drugs
Unit seized heroin on farmland in Lusk, north Co Dublin. The drugs were
destined for west Dublin and were being imported by a criminal gang.

Gardai say there is little sign of a depletion in the supply of heroin in
the city and particularly not in the Ronanstown and Bawnogue estates in the
west of the city, where the latest consignment was headed.