Irish truckers blamed for drugs
by Chris Ryder

INTERNATIONAL lorry drivers on both sides of the Irish border are being
blamed for the increasing flow of illegal drugs to Northern Ireland.

Detective Superintendent Kevin Sheehy, head of the RUC drug squad, said
this weekend that tackling the drug problem was now the force's most
important priority after combatting terrorism.

Last Thursday, in the most recent wave of interceptions, Customs officers
at the port of Belfast seized cannabis with a street value of £100,000
which had been welded into a lorry driveshaft being imported as freight
from southern Spain to a bogus address in east Belfast.

One man was arrested and on Friday was remanded in custody at Belfast
Magistrates' Court after being charged with the illegal importation of
drugs and possession with intent to supply.

Two others were also questioned and released on police bail as
investigations continued into the seizure which, customs investigators
believe, has exposed a drug trafficking route and a method used for some
time.

The successful operation took place just 24 hours before Sheehy publicly
highlighted the deepening involvement of international lorry drivers in the
illicit drug trade.

In an unusually frank and outspoken address at a drug conference in
Dunblane, Scotland, Sheehy said: "The Customs know all too well how deeply
involved Irish lorry drivers are in the drug trade. There's a huge
concentration of these drivers down in Armagh."

With hundreds of lorries using the main ports of Belfast and Larne each
day, and up to 30 lorries coming off individual ferries, the authorities
are unable to search as many as they would like.

Their efforts are also made more difficult by the sophisticated methods
used by the drug smugglers to conceal their contraband. False fuel tanks
and compartments have been built into vehicles and drugs are often
concealed in the wide variety of cargo being transported.

Nevertheless, as a result of intelligencegathering and surveillance and
cooperation with other drug enforcement agencies throughout Europe and the
rest of the world, an increasing portion of the drug smuggling activities
by lorry drivers, who travel as far as Greece and Turkey in the east and
Spain in the south, are being frustrated.

Last year cannabis worth £3.5m was seized at Southampton on a lorry bound
for Northern Ireland from France. In another successful operation at Dover,
nearly £6m worth of cocaine, cannabis and ecstasy was captured.

Sheehy warned that Northern Ireland terrorists, republican and loyalist,
were rapidly emerging as drug barons at an international level and could
soon control a large proportion of the drug trade on the British mainland.

Their move into drugs as a source of funding and community power has
dramatically increased since the ceasefires were called in 1994. RUC
figures show the alarming increase in drug trafficking and abuse.

In recent years the number of people arrested for drug offences has more
than tripled, from 453 arrests in 1991 to 1,558 in 1995. In the same period
cannabis seized increased from 37.5kg to 160.7kg. The number of LSD doses
recovered rose from 800 to 8,761. The most startling increase was in the
number of ecstasy tablets seized ­ up from 2,711 to 136,860.

Drug squad officers calculate they capture only 10% of the drugs being
circulated.

Militant French lorry drivers started their first blockades yesterday at
the start of what threatens to be one of their toughestever industrial
actions. The blockades, at three petrol depots outside Rouen, northern
France, were carried out after the collapse of negotiations aimed at
avoiding a nationwide strike.

Dozens more blockades are expected to spring up around the country today
when the industrial action officially gets under way. British lorry drivers
and motorists have been advised to cancel any plans to travel to France.
The Road Haulage Association said the blockades could stop thousands of
tonnes of fresh produce reaching shops.