Thursday, November 5, 2009 Previous editions
Ireland is being used as an important staging post for drugs arriving into the UK and Europe, police in the North will say today.
Seizures of cocaine and cannabis north and south of the border are recent examples of the problem.
Thousands of confiscations worth £17.9m (€21m) have been made in the North alone during the first six months of this financial year.
Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Detective Superintendent Garry Clarke will say: “The police cannot solve the drug problem in isolation. We need to work with others to reduce the demand for drugs.”
According to Mr Clarke, delegates will be told of Ireland’s role as an important staging post for traffickers.
In the last week the PSNI seized cocaine worth £300,000 (€355,000) in separate operations in Belfast and Ballymena, Co Antrim.
Officers announced details of over £15m (€17.7m) worth of cannabis discovered over the last year. In the first six months of this financial year 1,500 swoops were made the North on substances worth £17.9m (€21m).
Three men have also been remanded in custody in connection with the massive cocaine seizure made off the Cork coast earlier this month.
The haul was the biggest in the history of the state, and is believed to be worth more than half a billion euro.
Mr Clarke will add: “Crime gangs which traffic drugs will not find Northern Ireland a soft touch. It is in all our interests, and our children’s interests, to ensure they are disrupted and dismantled.”
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