DRUGS BUST OPERATION HAS PROVED A HUGE SUCCESS

AN international crime busting programme pioneered by the gardai has
clocked up millions of pounds in drugs seizures in its year long pilot
phase.

Now members of the force here and in the five neighbouring countries
involved are hoping the European Commission will agree to fund it into
the future.

The intelligence gathering programme, set up last year with pounds
70,000 EU funding and pounds 30,000 support from the Government, is
coming to the end of its term. But with 14 seizures and 56 arrests
under its belt in less than seven months, senior officers are eager to
see its work continued.

The programme was set up to establish links between the gardai and
their counterparts in European countries which play a key role in the
operations of known Irish criminals.

The Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Belgium and Germany were targeted as
partners in the programme and a network of liaison officers and a
shared data base has ensured the success of number of joint
surveillance and swoop operations.

Det Chief Supt Ted Murphy of the National Drugs Unit said Irish
criminals had increasingly turned to these five countries as their
operating bases and import routes in recent years because of the
crackdown at home which followed the murder of Veronica Guerin.

93A number of criminals managed to move their operations abroad but
just because they're out of the country, that isn't the end of the
problem.

93It creates more problems for us to try to deal with subjects abroad
but when you have the kind of co-operation we've been able to
establish through this initiative, you can bring the full resources of
the force in the corresponding country to bear.94

Sharing information and manpower, the programme took out of
circulation 80kg of cocaine, 2,600kg of cannabis, 50kg of
amphetamines, 9 kg of heroin, 450,000 ecstasy tablets and 23 guns
between October 1999 and the first week of this month. Thirteen of the
operations resulted in seizures or arrests on Irish soil, mostly in
Dublin and at Dublin Airport, but officers also intercepted a number
of consignments in Germany, Portugal, Belgium and The Netherlands
destined for the Irish market.

Senior officers involved in the programme gathered at Dublin Castle
yesterday to begin a two day series of workshops and seminars to
assess progress to date.

Det Chief Supt Murphy said the programme was costly in terms of
manpower but all the countries involved were committed to retaining
the links they had built.