'HUGE INCREASE' IN CUSTOMS DRUGS SEIZURES

Scottish customs officers will today reveal there was a large increase in
smuggled drugs and other contraband coming into the country over the past
year.

The figures come just a week after 'The Sctosman' revealed that organised
criminals involved with drug dealing were behind a deluge of cheap
cigarettes being smuggled into Scotland.

The trade in cigarettes costs the Scottish economy tens of millions of
pounds every year and particularly hits corner shops.

The figures unveiled by HM Customs and Excise will show a record number of
drugs seizures in the UK in the last year. Some areas, including Scotland,
will show increases of up to 20 per cent on 1996.

Custom's officers were reluctant to speak ahead of today's announcement,
but it is known that Britain's frontline customs officers have warned
officials that cash cuts could lead to a further increase in smuggled goods
reaching the country.

Some officers have been so angered by the cuts that they have instructed
their trade union, Public and Commercial Services, to prepare a ballot
which could lead to its first strike in almost 20 years.

A customs and excise spokeswoman said the officers did not face a cut in
basic pay but an adjustment to additional payments such as those for
working at evenings and weekends.

Customs officers in Scotland are bracing themselves for a vast increase in
cigarette smuggling into Scottish airports between now and 1 December, when
20p goes on to thge price of a packet of 20 in the UK.

John MacDougall, the head of FAST, the flexible anti-smuggling team based
at Glasgow Airport, said that in all major UK cities, gangs involved in
drug dealing were behind the cigarette smuggling trade.

Some 2.5 million bootleg cigarettes, worth tens of millions of pounds, have
been seized at Scottish airports over the past 12 months.

Customs investigators are convinced organised crime is behind the smuggling
racket, with drugs barons paying unemployed "mules" to travel to the Canary
Isles with empty suitcases to load with cheap cigarettes.

Popular brand names can be bought for as little as UKP7 for a carton of 200
- - a quarter of what they cost in Britain. They are then sold on to street
traders, markets and shopkeepers who sell them at a huge profit.

The smugglers cost British taxpayers an estimated UKP1 billion a year in
lost duty.