MI6 to step up fight against drug barons

BY DAVID WATTS IN KUALA LUMPUR AND MICHAEL EVANS, DEFENCE
CORRESPONDENT

ROBIN COOK announced yesterday that the full intelligence resources of
MI6 will be made available to tackle the growing global threat from
drug barons.

Launching the drive not far from Burma, the world's biggest opium
producer, the Foreign Secretary said that the Government was
determined to make more effort "to fight this scourge".

The Government, he said, would focus on attacking the drug supply
chain at every stage, from stifling production at source to preventing
profitability and stopping money laundering. Covert operations by MI6
intelligence officers abroad against international drug trafficking
and moneylaundering networks will become one of the top priorities.

MI6, which has an estimated 800 intelligence officers based at British
embassies, will have a strategic role, running deep penetration
operations aimed at harming the drug barons where it will have a
longterm impact. "This will mean focusing on the moneylaundering
systems, which lie at the heart of their operations," an intelligence
source said.

Although MI6 has already been involved in some drug investigations,
the Foreign Secretary has been given the clearest warning that a
bigger operation is required.

MI5, the domestic intelligence service, has also been empowered since
last October to investigate serious crime in support of the police and
can apply for warrants for surveillance and telephonetapping against
suspected drug barons in Britain. However, with an annual budget of
about £135 million and a large proportion of its staff involved in
countering Irish terrorism, only about 15 to 20 people so far have
been switched to fulltime crime investigations.

MI6 has a budget of less than £150 million and employs fewer than
2,000 people, many of whom are based at the London headquarters,
helping to control and support intelligence operations abroad.

One important development is that the Foreign Office now has a senior
diplomat based in London who has been appointed a drugs coordinator.
Intelligence sources said that that had helped to provide a proper
framework for covert drugs operations abroad.

The challenge for MI6 is huge. American law enforcement agencies
estimate that money laundering from organised drug trafficking amounts
to $1,000 billion (£625 billion) a year around the world, which
includes about $400 billion of drugs money in the US alone.

Coordinating counterdrugs operations between different countries has
also generated some of the biggest problems. While there has been
general agreement that international efforts should be pooled,
countries have different rules and procedures.

In Britain, although legislation against money laundering was passed
in 1994, there are still loopholes which can be abused by the
sophisticated drug barons whose empires are protected by legions of
lawyers and financial advisers. Offshore banks and companies are one
of the main tools of the bigtime drugrelated money launderers.

Of Britain's independent territories, only the Cayman Islands has
introduced its own laws against money laundering under which banks
have to report suspected moneylaundering transactions to the
authorities. The laws, introduced in January, have produced some
dramatic results.

David Bickford, former legal adviser to MI6 and MI5, said that money
laundering from drug trafficking was carried out through all the
world's main financial centres: London, Frankfurt, New York and Tokyo.
He described the scale of the drugs business around the world: in
South East Asia, the Burmese, Afghan, Vietnamese and Chinese gangs
cultivated 600,000 acres of opium, producing three million tons for
heroin production a year; in the US, the profits of Mafia gangs, much
of it from drugs, made them "the twentieth richest group, including
countries, in the world, richer than 150 sovereign states".

The role for MI6 intelligence officers and their network of secret
agents will be to mount longterm penetration of criminal
organisations. However, MI6 will act only in support of the police and
Customs. One of the lessons learnt in America was that uncoordinated
drug missions launched by a multitude of different organisations often
led to bizarre mixups, with undercover agents from one law
enforcement agency being arrested by undercover agents from another,
each involved in sting operations.

Mr Cook announced the antidrugs plan in a speech to Malaysian
leaders. He emphasised that he was not simply restating old policy.
"We will refocus all resources to make this a top priority," he
promised.

He added: "Burma is the world's largest single producer of opium. The
failure of the regime to address this issue, indeed their apparent
willingness to abet and profit from the drugs trade, deserves the
strongest condemnation."