CUTS 'LEAVE COAST CLEAR FOR DRUG SMUGGLERS'

Customs say 50% fall in its yearly drugs haul is a statistical blip, not a
failure JIM WILSON Crime Correspondent

THE value of drugs seized by front-line customs officers in Scotland has
fallen by 50 per cent, fuelling fears that cutbacks have left the coastline
dangerously exposed to smugglers.

Union leaders claimed yesterday that the closure of rural offices had
encouraged organised criminals to exploit thousands of miles of unguarded
coast to bring drugs ashore.

The annual report of the HM Customs and Excise Scotland Collection reveals
that officers seized drugs with an estimated value of A31.67 million in
1997-98 while recoveries in the year before totalled almost A33.3 million.

However, a spokesman for the customs service claimed yesterday that the
statistics were deceptive because cocaine worth A32.6 million had been
washed up on South Uist in 1996 and, discounting that recovery, the number
and value of drugs seizures last year had increased.

Tom Watt, the west of Scotland branch secretary of the Public Commercial
Services Union, said that other enforcement agencies had recently reported
record seizures and the dropping value of customs' recoveries was not
surprising given the closure of offices around Scotland's 2,300 miles of
coastline.

"The eyes and ears of the service have effectively been removed," Mr Watt
said. "Officers, often with years of local knowledge and contacts, have
gone and not been replaced.

"People living on remote coastline might not tell a stranger about seeing a
suspicious landing or meeting strangers with no plausible reason for being
there but might have previously told a familiar officer."

Another three customs offices, in Campbeltown, Stornoway and Kirkwall, will
shut next year to complete the rolling programme of closures and cutbacks
that have dramatically reduced the number of officers working in the north
and west of Scotland.

The fall in customs seizures emerged as most enforcement agencies working
against drug traffickers continued to report large year-on-year increases
in drug recoveries.

Last week, the Scottish Crime Squad announced that the street value of
seizures recovered by the E9lite police unit had trebled in three years to
a record A38.6 million last year.

The Scottish Drugs Forum said yesterday that seizures could not be used to
gauge accurately the volume of the drugs reaching the market but a
spokesman said that the street price of heroin, for example, had remained
largely static since 1991, suggesting no drop in supply.

A spokesman for the Scottish customs service said that the closure of rural
offices could not be linked to the falling value of the drugs recovered by
officers, adding that operations against international smuggling cartels
often involved months of sur-veillance and the long-term cultivation of
underworld sources.

"Tip-offs from our rural offices rarely led to drugs seizures. The
gathering of effective intelligence against major smuggling operations is
now by necessity more complex than that," he said.

The spokesman said that removing the 13kg of cocaine found by accident on
South Uist from the 1996 figures meant that Scottish customs officers last
year seized more consignments with a higher street value.

He also stressed that major drugs operations were conducted by the customs'
National Investigation Service, which also reported record drugs recoveries
last year, with drugs valued at more than A3650 million being seized in
1997, compared with A3510 million the year before.

Dick Kellaway, the investigation arm's chief officer, said that the impact
of seizures on organised smuggling operations could not be overestimated.

For every A31 million of drugs seized, a further A32.5 million on average
are kept out of the United Kingdom," said Mr Kellaway.

Specialist officers deployed in rapid action anti-smuggling teams were now
used by Scottish customs to respond to intelligence, travelling quickly to
secluded locations which were suspected of being used for landing drugs.

A number of big cannabis consignments worth millions of pounds have been
successfully intercepted in recent years but one Scottish customs source
yesterday said there had been few such victories in the war against hard
drugs.

"Boats loaded with tons and tons of cannabis are relatively easy targets
compared to a guy rowing ashore with a briefcase full of heroin but you
have to ask which one does most damage," he said.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski