STOPPING DRUG TRAFFICKERS

Police Hope to Make Hash of Smuggling

The Ministry of Internal Affairs plans to set up a special bureau for
combating drug trafficking and production. The Internal Affairs Ministry
announcement of an anti-drugs task force comes on the heels of a Feb. 28
report by the United Nations' International Narcotics Control Board (INCB),
which states that Poland and the Czech Republic are Central and Eastern
Europe's leading producers of synthetic drugs.

The INCB examines substance abuse throughout the world based on information
from governments with which it cooperates. It says Polish and Czech
amphetamines are popular in Scandinavia and Germany. Over the last two
years, Polish police have raided six large amphetamine laboratories.

Poland is also a transit country for West bound hashish, heroin and cocaine
produced in Afghanistan, Morocco and Nigeria, though the INCB report notes
that far fewer narcotics are available in Poland than in Western Europe.

The number of people reaching for hard drugs like cocaine and ecstasy is
increasing, Last year, police throughout Europe seized 10 tons of heroin
and nearly 800 tons of hashish. The Polish Border Guard and police,
meanwhile, confiscated more than 15 tons of hashish and more than 100
kilograms of cocaine.

"Poland is part of the world narcotic production and trafficking system,"
the Interior Ministry's Waldemar Markiewicz said as the INCB report was
being presented. "Narcotics are becoming a social problem in Poland."

The INCB report also deals with drug-related crimes such as money
laundering. Markiewicz admitted that Polish law enforcers still can't
effectively fight money-launderers. Police and customs officers are taking
part in training programs taught by European Union experts. One such
program started in Gdansk on Feb. 19. British customs agents are teaching
Poland's Central Board of Customs (GUC) and Border Guard employees how to
combat drug smuggling by sea.

The fight against drug trafficking and smuggling became a little easier
last year when lawmakers set up the Polish equivalent of the U.S. Witness
Protection Program and passed a new law on police entrapment. Witnesses can
now testify incognito in court, and the police have more freedom in going
after drug-runners.

The Interior Ministry is also preparing to set up the Drug Bureau, modeled
after the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. The bureau will coordinate police,
State Protection Office (UOP), customs-agent and border-guard activities.