Festive drug-smuggling fear

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://news.sky.com/home/article/16104950" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Investigators fear traffickers will use the Christmas parcel rush to smuggle class-A drugs into Britain.

In the past year suppliers have used parcels, air freight and ship containers to send heroin directly from Pakistan, says the UK Border Agency.

It follows the disruption of Turkish gangs who had sent drugs by road.

In one new scam a gang posted genuine bottles of baby powder to Pakistan, where the powder was replaced with heroin and mailed back marked "return to sender".

The packages were collected by gang members from various domestic addresses in Hull, where residents were paid £100 a time to take delivery.

Two of the parcels were intercepted at the Mount Pleasant sorting office in London, where the bottles were found to contain heroin with a street value of more than £4m.

Jim Jarvie, of the UKBA, said: "We don't know whether the increase in heroin trafficked directly from Pakistan will be a long-term change."

He added: "The market for heroin in the UK remains and continued demand could see further changes with new criminal groups seeking access to the market using innovative methods."

One gang used a container sent to Felixstowe docks to smuggle 80 kilos of heroin disguised as chilli powder.

Other traffickers coated a consignment of paintings with a cocaine solution.

Agency staff use intelligence, technology and trends to choose which parcels to examine.

Only a fraction of the millions of tons of freight and parcels that arrive each year by air and sea can be checked but the agency says that 65% of what it does open contains something illegal.

Seizures of cocaine and heroin in the first six months of this year have already overtaken the totals for the previous year.

[Postman Plodd]

This sounds familiar, havent we seen something like this before on here?

*rummage rummage*

oh yeah we have

http://www.royalmailchat.co.uk/communit ... aby+powder" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Lol - love the sound effects

[Postman Plodd]

A childhood spent reading The Dandy, Beano, Whizzer & Chips, Shiver & Shake, Beezer etc is the cause of my littering the typed word with such shenannigans.
That or the smack.

[DGP1]

A childhood spent reading The Dandy, Beano, Whizzer & Chips, Shiver & Shake, Beezer etc is the cause of my littering the typed word with such shenannigans.
That or the smack.

I never thought I'd see the word 'shenannigans' on RMC, personally I think this word should be in general use

[pinstripe]

I hope the drug smugglers are in no rush. They should expect delivery sometime in February.

[Postman Plodd]

No rush at all, its a sellers market. I hear smack is very 'moreish'.