SMUGGLERS TARGET 'EASY' AIRPORTS

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 Pounds 5.4m compared with Pounds 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."