FOUR NATIONS CARRY OUT ANTI-DRUG OPERATION

BRUSSELS, Nov 29 (Reuters) - More than 1,500 police officers from Belgium,
France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands took part in an anti-drug operation
in the past five days, netting cannabis and small amounts of heroin and
cocaine, Belgian police said on Sunday.

The Belgian police revealed there had been two international anti-drug
operations, codenamed ``Scorpio'' and ``Brumaire,'' aimed at combatting
drug-trafficking and ``drug tourism'' -- travelling to other countries to
buy drugs.

Operation ``Scorpio,'' which ran from Wednesday to Friday, involved checks
in the Dutch frontier region with Belgium, the Belgian police said in a
statement.

The second operation, ``Brumaire,'' which ran from Saturday afternoon to
Sunday morning, was a cooperative effort involving 1,000 investigators from
France, 150 from Belgium, 285 from the Netherlands and 86 from Luxembourg.

In the four countries, police carried out inspections on motorways,
secondary roads, in international trains and small airports. In the
Netherlands, police made checks in coffeeshops and other places known for
the sale of drugs.

In total, police in the four countries searched 4,982 vehicles and 7,599
people. They found 194 people in possession of drugs but arrested only nine
of them, the statement said. They also seized seven vehicles and 17
weapons.

A total of 7.7 kgs (17 lbs) of cannabis was seized together with 261 grams
of heroin, 13 grams of cocaine, several other drugs and cannabis plants,
the statement said.

In each of the four nations involved, a national coordination centre was
set up to oversee exchange of information with the other police forces.
Many checks were carried out on the basis of this shared information, it
said.

Checked-by: Joel W. Johnson