DRUG FRONTS - ASIAN SHOPS COVER FOR HEROIN TRADE: REPORT

CHINESE and Vietnamese cartels are bankrolling WA's heroin trade and
distributing the drug through restaurants and bakeries in suburban
Perth, new research shows.

An Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence report said mid-level
dealers bought the drug from these legitimate shopfront businesses and
sold it to lower level dealers.

The Illicit Drug Report 1999-2000 claimed the businesses also
laundered millions in black cash from its sale.

But the Ethnic Communities Council challenged the source of the
information, the National Crime Authority, to substantiate its
allegations.

Council president Ramdas Sankaran said a list of recent drug arrests
comprised "good Anglo-Saxon names".

Mr Sankaran said the Asian community already had been stigmatised
unfairly by recent gang attacks in Northbridge."It is absurd to
suggest that Vietnamese or Chinese people are running the drug trade,"
he said. "All you have to do is read the papers about recent drug
arrests and look at the names."

Narrogin police confirmed statements in the report that some locals
were growing opium poppies. But the report claimed most heroin came
into WA from Sydney, with students acting as "mules" - couriers
bringing heroin by rail and air.

The report said the NCA had found evidence that WA-based Chinese and
Vietnamese syndicates were importing heroin directly into WA and
bypassing established crime networks such as those in Australia's drug
capital, the Sydney suburb of Cabramatta.

In 1999, police intercepted sachets of heroin sent in greeting cards
from Hong Kong to a Perth address.

The report estimated that a 700g block of heroin, known as a catti,
was being sold in Perth for between $47,000 and $55,000.

Heroin in WA was the second purest in the nation at 55.5 per cent. In
New South Wales it was 60 per cent.

The Federal Government rejected Opposition claims that the growing
number of addicts to heroin and other drugs despite a record level of
seizures meant the war on drugs was failing.

Justice Minister Chris Ellison said the increase in busts indicated
drug strategies were working.

Authorities believe the increase in heroin busts may relate to the
boom in world opium production to 5800 tonnes in 1999-2000.