DRUG CARTELS TURN HEATHROW INTO HEROIN HUB

HEATHROW airport has become the hub of heroin smuggling operations by
Colombian drug cartels targeting European cities.

American and Spanish drugs intelligence officers say that the cartels, which
made their fortunes out of cocaine supplies, are expanding into heroin
markets after planting opium poppy fields in South America. They are using
Heathrow as a key transit point for high-value heroin cargoes as the cartels
try to take over European markets.

The drugs are moved by couriers on flights from the Caribbean and Central
America. The drugs are carried in hand luggage and passed over to British
couriers in transit lounges. The new couriers then take flights to European
capitals, including Madrid and Amsterdam.

They are not checked thoroughly when they land because flights from London
are not regarded as top priority. Investigators have concentrated on flights
direct from South America.

Yesterday a spokesman for Customs said that Heathrow was the busiest
international airport in the world. So far no Colombian heroin couriers have
been arrested at the airport, but investigators are aware that Colombian
gangs are making inroads into traditional European heroin markets. Earlier
this month Central Intelligence Agency estimates published in Washington
showed that the Colombians increased cultivation of opium poppies by 23 per
cent last year. Drugs investigators believe that the cartels have shouldered
aside Chinese and Asian heroin suppliers to become the leading heroin
suppliers in the United States.

Spanish police have put a special watch on flights from Heathrow in an
attempt to break what they are calling "the ghost route". Controls were set
up on Heathrow flights six months ago after Spanish police received a
tip-off from the Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington about the
Colombians' plans to oust the Asian groups that have traditionally
controlled the heroin trade in Britain and Europe.

Spanish police, who admit that they have not managed to capture a single
heroin courier on the new route, said that they faced an uphill task. They
said they were used to seizing cocaine from "mules" arriving on flights from
Latin America, but conceded that they did not usually pay much attention to
British flights.

"Until now the Colombians have used their own people, or Spaniards, as
couriers," a police source at Madrid's Barajas airport said. "It is a lot
more difficult to detect and stop British couriers."

The Colombians have been fighting a fierce turf war with gangs from the Far
East's Golden Triangle and with Middle Eastern traffickers for control of
the heroin trade in the United States in recent years.

That battle has now been won by the Colombians and their trafficking allies
from the Dominican Republic, who now account for two thirds of the heroin
discovered in America. Their strategy for controlling that market has
included selling heroin with purity levels reaching as high as 95 per cent,
and undercutting the prices of their competitors.

Spain and The Netherlands are two of the countries that are believed to be
receiving a new influx of high-grade Colombian heroin from the British
couriers, according to customs officials in Britain and Spain.

"We have heard that there is a route coming in via transit to The
Netherlands," a British Customs and Excise spokesman confirmed.

Paris: President Chirac will travel to The Netherlands today for a visit
that he hopes will repair tensions over liberal Dutch drug laws. The
Netherlands is the source of 30 to 60 per cent of illegal drugs seized in
France. (Reuters)

The purity of the Colombian heroin makes it particularly dangerous to
addicts who are liable to overdose. "They even market their drug using brand
names - like No Way Out and Death Wish - as a way to instil customer
recognition and loyalty," William Ledwith, the US Drug Enforcement
Administration's chief of international operations, told a congressional
committee earlier this month.

With the conquest of the US already complete, the Colombians, who already
control the cocaine trade, now want Europe's heroin market.