The recently beefed up Customs Department was in the news again this week after its officers intercepted 90 kilos of cocaine in a Freeport container. In what has now become a regular occurrence, the drugs were coming from a third country and were destined for another third country.
In this latest case the drugs, worth over €10 million, came from Equador and were destined for Greece.
The Customs Department's track record over the past few months has been more than impressive. The investment made equipment, training and new units is certainly bearing fruit and several tonnes of cocaine and cannabis failed to make it to their intended market thanks to hard work, vigilance and technological advances.
Just last week, customs officials seized 48 kilos of cocaine worth €5 million. The drugs in that case had also originated from Ecuador and were heading to Greece.
On 20 December they found 5,000 kilos of cannabis resin in a container coming from Spain with its final destination being Malta.
On 22 November a sniffer dog from the newly formed canine unit detected 10 kilos of cannabis hidden in a car that had just arrived from Sicily. Another sniffer dog had detected a passenger carrying 5 kilos of cannabis at the airport some weeks earlier.
On 21 November customs officers found 44 kilos of cocaine worth around €4.5 million in a container coming from Ecuador heading to Cyprus.
In September officials found almost 11 tonnes of cannabis hidden in two containers with a value of more than €28 million coming from Syria and destined for Libya.
150kg of cannabis hidden underneath a container vessel moored at the Freeport in January.
And another 100kg of cocaine were detected, in February, with the scanner in a container at the Freeport. The drugs were sent under a controlled delivery procedure to Croatia, where a huge criminal gang was arrested.
And it not just drugs. Just yesterday, customs officials found 7.7 million contraband cigarettes in a container coming from the Netherlands and heading to Tunisia. This raised the number of contraband cigarettes seized this year to over 56 million.
It is positive to note that the vast majority of intercepted drugs and contraband items were not intended for the Maltese market. This, combined with the recent successes that the Malta Police Force has had in combating drug trafficking locally would indicate that the drug problem in Malta is at least being contained.
But the frequency and size of these drug busts raises the question of whether Malta is being used as a hub for international drug running. And if this is the case, how long has this been going on for? The drugs are coming in from all directions and are destined for several different countries, both in Europe and North Africa.
While we are not privy to how the Customs Department and Police Drug Squad work – how they are tipped off, and how many containers are actually scanned and search, it is understood that the majority of containers are not inspected. One can safely assume that, while some of the drug stashes are intercepted, others are not. The question is: how many?
Every effort must be made to ensure that Malta is not becoming a hub for drug trafficking. The country's reputation has suffered enough as of late.
from The Malta Independent http://bit.ly/2CF5Ktq
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