DRUG WAR RUMBLES ON

When Spanish law enforcement officers commandeered a 40-foot yacht
off the Galician coast last August, they praised the assistance of
law enforcement agencies across Europe who had helped lead them to
the 3.8 tonnes of cannabis resin on board.

But what the officer in charge didn't mention was that the
intelligence which led to the seizure - described as a "major
operation" against hashish smuggling in the EU - had come directly
from Irish customs sources.

During 2008, Irish-led intelligence played a key role in seizures,
not just at home, but also in a number of operations against Dutch,
Spanish and African drug gangs importing narcotics to continental Europe.

The Spanish haul led to the arrest of three Dutch citizens and the
seizure of a Euro 400,000 Dutch-flagged yacht, which was steered by
Spanish customs into the port of La Coruna. The operation had begun
with intelligence gathered by Irish customs officers in Dublin. That
information travelled in real time via the Portuguese capital
Lisbon, where Irish customs and excise antinarcotic intelligence is
shared among liaison officers from French, Spanish,
British, Portuguese, Italian and Dutch law enforcement.

Spain, with its extensive coastline, is Europe's main point of entry
for Moroccan cannabis and for cocaine from South America, mostly
from Colombia. The level of cooperation between EU law enforcement
is a result of governments realising that Spain's drug problem is
also Ireland's and Britain's drug problem, and vice versa.

Michael Colgan, director of the Irish customs and excise drug
enforcement unit, said that the past 12months had been a time of
major change in the Irish fight against drugs. "The biggest things
that have affected on our work have been the assignment of a
full-time officer with Interpol and an officer assigned to the new
centre in Lisbon," he said.

Colgan doesn't hide his pride that the Revenue Commissioners were
instrumental in pushing for a seven-state agreement in 2006 that led
to the establishment of the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre
- -Narcotics (MAOC-N),which is based in Lisbon and has been fully
operational since late 2007.

"We held a conference here in 2006 to promote the agenda of getting
a MAOCN agreement. It's hard to get an agreement between seven
countries, but the conference lent an impetus that had a significant
effect on moving the issue forward," he said.

"The Lisbon operation is made up of several experts - some in law
enforcement, others in customs and excise - working in co-located
premises with their direct counterparts. They have access to all the
intelligence that we have here and that the respective counterparts
have in their home state, and they can put that at each other's disposal."

For the Irish, the new collaboration works particularly well, partly
because it is business as usual. The MAOC-N is headed by Tim
Manhire, a former senior British customs official and latterly a
member of Britain's serious organised crime agency (Soca).

Three years ago, Soca took over as Britain's main intelligence-led
agency, tackling class A drugs, organised immigration crime, fraud,
e-crime, firearms and the recovery of the proceeds of crime.

"Our long-standing relationship was with people in HM Customs and
Excise, who have been taken into Soca," said Colgan.

"These are the same people we've been dealing with - our prime
contacts - for over ten years. We would have worked very well
together, but we wouldn't have had the level of permanent
cooperation that we have now established."

The state's largest ever once-off drugs seizure - the interception
of a Euro 750million cocaine shipment off the west Cork coast last
month - emerged from intelligence gathered by two British police
agencies. It culminated in the seizure of the British-registered
yacht Dances With Waves 240 kilometres south of Mizen Head.

Intelligence obtained by Soca and the Scottish Drug Enforcement
Agency (SDEA) suggested that the vessel was due to rendezvous with a
larger boat off the Caribbean coast in early October, when it was
due to take on board a drugs consignment and transport it to Britain.

The yacht was tracked by US drug enforcement officers in the
Caribbean and, as it passed into European waters, MAOC-N officials
kept a close eye on its movements, waiting for an opportunity to
grab the crew and cargo.

It was boarded by Irish naval personnel on November 7,when it looked
like inclement weather might force the crew to scuttle the yacht.

Ireland's partners in MAOC-N have the benefit of good intelligence
networks that are based on long-standing ties with the countries
where drugs are being either sourced or moved.

"Bear in mind that we never colonised anywhere, but if you look at a
lot of the players in the mix - the Portuguese, the Spanish, the
Dutch - they all had big empires, and the remnants of empires," Colgan said.

As a result, the Portuguese and Spanish police and customs have
strong linguistic and expatriate ties with southern and central
American states like Colombia and Brazil. "The French have their
contacts in Africa, the Dutch have people in the Antilles, and the
British were everywhere," said Colgan.

The MAOC-N was set up to deal with cocaine trafficking and, in
particular, to examine the movement of drugs from south and central
America to the Caribbean and into west Africa, where emerging
cartels are establishing themselves as major players in
the importation of narcotics to the EU.

Ireland is at the end of the supply chain, with cocaine emerging in
the Caribbean and travelling via Africa - Benin and Guinea Bissau
being major distribution hubs - and ending up in either Holland or
Britain prior to making the last leg of the journey.

"The drug cartels are going into African communities where there is
no an established history of law enforcement and are using big money
or threats of violence to set up distribution networks there to
convey product on to Europe," said Colgan.

"These are also considered high-risk routes for other products such
as heroin." Due to the Mizen Head seizure, which involved 1.9 tonnes
of cocaine worth Euro 750 million, the level of cocaine seizures in
Ireland for 2008 will be off the chart in relation to previous
records - even when the Euro 400 million haul that gardai recovered
off the Cork coast in July 2007 is taken into account. Gardai and
customs combined had seized Euro 8 million worth of the drug by mid-2008.

While much of the media focus in recent years has been,
understandably, on Ireland's increasing use of cocaine as a
recreational drug, heroin remains a major problem. Heroin seizures
by customs tripled over this year compared to 2007. It is likely
that increased demand for the drug and a greater level of seizures
by law enforcement officials have contributed to this rise.

Colgan has seen nothing to suggest that the recession of recent
months has dampened the demand for narcotics. "I suppose, looking at
heroin addicts, they will continue to need to feed that habit. We
are not seeing any fall off yet," he said.

"Our seizures of heroin are up hugely. In all honesty, we have found
heroin the most difficult of all drugs to detect, because it is
usually very well concealed and is moved around in relatively small
consignments." In the first 11 months of 2008, seizures of heroin by
customs and excise have amounted to 70 kilos, compared with 22.8
kilos for the 12months of 2007.The indications are that 2008 is
destined to record the highest seizures of the drug in the state's
history, with 91 kilos seized by gardai in the first six months of
the year alone.

Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern has told the Dail that Ireland's
heroin problem, which is part of a pan-European issue, is directly
linked to developments in the production of the drug in Afghanistan,
from where 90 per cent of the heroin on sale in Europe originates.

Ireland's role as part of a newly-empowered and increasingly
successful European drug-busting agency comes amid widespread
acknowledgement that the international drugs market has changed
significantly in recent years. At the same time, the demands placed
on law enforcement have increased as new transit routes pose
different challenges in terms of intelligence gathering.