DIFFICULTIES IN PURSUING DRUG BARONS HIGHLIGHTED

The difficulties faced by gardai in bringing the main figures in the
drug dealing trade to justice were highlighted in Sligo this week when
a man who pleaded guilty to possessing the first seizure of cocaine in
the town told a court he was too afraid to name the dealer for whom he
was working.

The 24-year-old man, who said he first experimented with drugs at the
age of 12 and agreed to act as a "runner" for the main dealer only
because he was in debt from his drug habit, was given five months to
prove to the Circuit Court judge that he was serious about giving up
drugs.

"If by May he has earned a suspended sentence, he will get it, if not,
he won't," Judge Anthony Kennedy said of the man, who had no previous
convictions before being found in possession of pounds 16,000 worth of
ecstasy and cocaine.

Drugs with a street value of more than pounds 1 million destined for
Sligo have been seized in the past six months. A number of people have
been arrested and charged but gardai have yet to pin down the main
figures. The assertion by the 24-yearold man that he feared for both
his own safety and that of his family if he gave names was not
challenged by the gardai, who accepted that "with the way things are
going at the moment on the drugs scene, that could follow".

However, gardai have notched up a number of significant successes
against the drugs trade in Sligo. Ten days before Christmas a Sligo
man was arrested in Holyhead, Wales, in possession of pounds 500,000
worth of cannabis. He has been charged and is in custody.

In August, a haul of cannabis and ecstasy worth pounds 500,000 was
found in a flat in the village of Tubbercurry. Six arrests were made
and two men have been charged and are in custody. Close links have now
developed between the Drugs Unit in Sligo, the national unit in Dublin
and police in London and in north Wales.

It is known that the drugs are coming from Europe, through London and
then Ireland. When the Sligo man was arrested in Holyhead travelling
under a false name, gardai in Sligo helped identify him.

It is accepted that those caught carrying the drugs are not the ones
making the big money from the trade. Gardai estimate that the drugs
seized in Holyhead with a street value of pounds 500,000 would have
cost the main dealer only about pounds 100,000, and they also believe
that the cost of such a loss would be split among a number of leading
players.

Both large hauls are believed to have been destined not just for Sligo
town but for a wider area in the north-west.

Supt John Fitzgerald said the seizures in Tubbercurry and Holyhead
were very significant. "Firstly, the dealers are being pinched because
they are losing money and also successes like this mean we are taking
people out of the scene," he said.

Supt Fitzgerald said, however, that there were a number of "different
layers of pushers who had built their lives around this activity
locally" and that dealers could constantly change the people and the
channels they used for transporting drugs.