Proceeds of crime yield €5.1m from CAB operations
The statistics revealed in the Garda Síochána Annual Report, published yesterday, also show that 365,000 tablets of the first head shop drug to be banned, BZP, were seized in the nine months after it became a controlled substance last year.
The report shows that last year CAB began 18 new cases before the High Court under the Proceeds of Crime Act and trained a further 24 gardaí as Divisional Assets Profilers.
The state’s crime assets watchdog also made savings of some €720,000 from social welfare schemes being accessed by criminals, while a total of €790,000 was identified as being social welfare overpayments, with €160,000 being recovered.
The report also highlights the volume of drugs analysed in the Forensic Science Laboratory. The largest number of cases related to heroin, with 1,513 cases involving almost 80,000gm of the drug.
More than two million grams of cannabis resin involving 1,197 cases were also analysed, in addition to 612,000gm of cannabis linked to another 1,059 cases. While cannabis resin has traditionally been the dominant force in the drugs market, in recent years there has been increased availability of herbal cannabis alongside the growth of industrialised “grow houses” operated by south Asian gangs. More than 125,000gm of cocaine passed through the lab regarding 692 cases, as well as 18,746 ecstasy tablets and more than 365,000 BZP (Benzylpiperazine) tablets, which became the first head shop drug to be banned when it became a controlled substance last year.
Elsewhere, the report shows that there are approximately 1,100 people on the Sex Offenders register, while the Paedophile Investigation Unit has coordinated a number of operations against those behind the production and distribution of child porn.
The report also shows that there was a 8.3% fall in public order incidents last year, as well as a 5.7% drop in criminal damage cases and an 8.6% fall in the number of assaults.
In all, district officers wrote to 76,305 victims of crime last year to provide contact details of investigating officers and the availability of victim support services.
The Garda Missing Persons Bureau revealed there were 7,749 missing person reports lodged last year, with 91 of those still untraced by the end of 2010.
The highest number of untraced people were in the high risk category, at 65. Of those, 52 were in the Dublin Metropolitan region. The next highest figure for high risk missing persons was the southern region, where seven people had not been traced.
One long-term missing person case, that of Imelda Keenan, missing since January 1994, was involved in an age progression operation last year, the report states that two other long term cases are being considered for similar age progression activities.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
