DRUG SUPPLY CHAIN TARGETED

A new squad to catch the middlemen flooding London with cocaine, heroin and
synthetic drugs has been launched by the police and Customs.

Operation Middle Market aims to locate those who store, sell and distribute
drugs once they have entered the country.

Though producers and sellers have been heavily targeted in recent years,
relatively little attention has been paid to the entrepreneurs who make the
supply chain work.

Some of these are hardened criminals, involved in gang and drug activity,
but others are seemingly respectable business people. Police intelligence
suggests that some middlemen run food outlets, property and import/export
companies which act as fronts for their illegal activities.

The new squad will represent the most sustained assault on the problem
since the disbandment of the Metropolitan police drug squad in 1990. It
will start off with between 40 and 50 officers.

The unit extends the relationship formed between Customs and Scotland Yard
during an investigation into the importation of drugs from Colombia. Last
week that two-year operation culminated in the arrests of 12 people in
London and 15 more in Colombia. Seventeen searches were conducted in
residential addresses in north, south and east London. Eleven people have
been charged with conspiracy to launder the proceeds of drugs.

The Met commissioner, Sir John Stevens, said the arrests marked a step
change in the way the force addressed the drug problem: "We are tackling
the drug problem from where it emanates, in places like Jamaica and Colombia.

"But those who think they can operate open drug markets in this city are in
for a shock. There will be an absolute effort to stamp out this evil trade.

"There is a sophisticated network but we understand the problem more than
we have ever understood it before. We have followed it back to the
countries where these people operate and we know the routes they use into
this city."

The assistant commissioner Tarique Ghaffeur, head of specialist operations
at Scotland Yard, said: "We are going to have a shared command team and a
shared intelligence set-up. One of the biggest things we have learned is
that some of these people are able to distribute large quantities of drugs
and get the money out of the country very quickly."

He said some overtly respectable types became middlemen because of family
associations and the desire for easy and vast profits. One tactic will be
to establish through intelligence people who are living above their means.

A string of cases have highlighted the existence of large-scale operations
in London.

In May four members of a west London criminal gang were jailed for more
than 20 years for serious drug and firearm offences. Brothers Sukhdev Singh
Bassi, 26, and Rajinder Singh Bassi, 25, were convicted of supplying more
than 25kg (55lb) of heroin in Southall, west London, and possessing an
automatic handgun. Two other gang members were jailed.

The brothers' cousin Jaspal Bassi, 34, who gave evidence against them, was
freed and went into hiding. During one of the investigations, detectives
found 1kg of heroin inside a child's rucksack.

In January, Rebecca Atobrah, 49, of Gipsy Hill, south London, and seven
accomplices were jailed for a total of 90 years. She used young girls to
bring crack cocaine to Britain from Colombia.

Figures released last week show that cocaine use is reaching epidemic
proportions in the UK.