Cocaine traffickers open Eastern European route

COCAINE traffickers have opened a new distribution route to Western Europe through Eastern Europe, a UN report has revealed.

The report said that this partly explains a significant drop in large scale cocaine seizures across Western Europe in the last two years.

Garda sources have confirmed there has been a dramatic reduction in very large hauls of cocaine here, with drug importers now favouring smaller shipments.

Customs officers have also noticed the new trafficking route through Eastern Europe and from there to Western Europe, which is the main market for cocaine on the continent. The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) Annual Report 2009 highlights a number of other “disturbing” trends:

* Increasing abuse of prescription medicines, including sedatives and tranquillisers.

* The risk to people’s lives posed by internet pharmacies.

* Increased cultivation of cannabis plants in domestic factories.

* Sale of cannabis seeds over the internet and in head shops.

* Use of pharmaceutical drugs to carry out sexual assaults and other crimes.

The report said cocaine seizures in Europe had “decreased dramatically” in the last two years.

The report highlighted the “emerging problem” of benzodiazepines (tranquillisers and sedatives) to facilitate sexual assault (date rape).

It said these drugs were facilitating other crimes: “Unwanted behaviour induced by the unknowing consumption of benzodiazepines includes revealing credit card information, making purchases in a number of shops and signing cheques or charging credit cards, giving away a motor vehicle (together with the key and vehicle registration papers) and perceiving being raped as a pleasurable experience.”