Five held after swallowing drugs

FIVE people on a flight from Malaga to Dublin were caught having swallowed cannabis in a bid to smuggle it into the country — part of a growing trend of ‘swallowers’ caught at the country’s largest airport.

Sgt Martin Halpin of Dublin Airport Gardaí said the five arrests made just before Christmas brought the annual tally of importations to 38 — a slight increase on last year’s total figure, with a week to go to year end.

In addition, one-third of the 38 people caught trying to smuggle drugs through Dublin Airport were ‘swallowers’ — again an increase on the comparable figure for last year. Unusually, the number of people swallowing cannabis is increasing while the numbers swallowing bags of cocaine is falling.

“We have seen a decrease in the amount of cocaine swallowers vis a vis importations, and that is probably down to the fact that there is less demand due to less money being around,” Sgt Halpin said.

Of the five people arrested on the recent Malaga to Dublin flight, four were Romanian and one was an English national.

All were carrying the drugs internally and Sgt Halpin said the logistics of supervising five arrests on the one flight was difficult.

Throughout the course of 2011 five Irish nationals were arrested for trying to bring drugs in through the airport, along with four Britons, with the remaining arrests mostly people from Eastern Europe, mostly caught with cannabis for distribution among their own communities, rather than for sale or supply.

The rise in the number of people caught bringing drugs into Ireland from Eastern Europe is in contrast to the situation some years ago when many of those caught at the airport were from South Africa or Brazil.

While just three people attempted to bring heroin in through the airport — secreted away in suitcases — there were four instances of people attempting to bring Khat into Ireland. A flowering plant banned here but legal in Britain, it originates in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian peninsula and is chewed.

According to Sgt Halpin: “That stuff has a short shelf life, it is usually going from here to the US [United States] where there seems to be a demand.”

Customs staff typically profile certain individuals in advance so gardaí can act once they land. Sgt Halpin said many of those caught trying to bring drugs through the airport are “at the latter end” of the chain and are often vulnerable — “on their last legs” and carrying the drugs as “a last resort” to make money.

He said swallowing drugs so as to smuggle them into the country was “a risky business” but that Ireland’s figures compared favourably to other countries: for example, the Netherlands catches up to 1,000 people a year attempting to smuggle drugs internally.

Sgt Halpin said that while work at the airports to halt drug smuggling was significant, the coast and sea ports were still the main routes for drugs entering the country.