BRITISH CUSTOMS is pleased with how effectively the ion scan drug trace detection machines at Jamaica's two international airports have been fingering cocaine swallowers before they get to Britain.
So pleased, in fact, that the British Foreign and Common-wealth Office is thinking of providing with the same technology, some Eastern Caribbean countries which have been experiencing increased smuggling of cocaine to Britain by mules who swallow the drug.
John Healey, the British Customs Minister, announced on Saturday that in the first six months of the agreement between the United Kingdom and Jamaica, there was a 10-fold increase in the number of cocaine couriers detected before they board planes to the UK from Jamaica. Also contributing to the success was the allocation to UK Customs of an extra two million pounds to tackle the problem.
Customs and police action in both Jamaica and the UK has resulted in a fall by two thirds in the number of cocaine couriers detected on arrival in the UK. At the same time, the number of couriers arrested in Jamaica has risen 10-fold, compared with the same period (June to November) the previous year, British Customs states.
Announcing the findings, Mr. Healey, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, and Customs Minister, said:
"We are choking a significant smuggling route for cocaine to the UK. Partnership with Jamaica means we are getting the crack cocaine destined for our streets out of the supply chain before it reaches the UK. This new approach by Customs to tackling the cocaine courier trade keeps us one step ahead of the smugglers and will help put an end to an appalling method of smuggling that puts lives at risk and fuels violence on our streets."
"Operation Airbridge" is the joint operation between the Jamaican and UK governments working together to combat drug trafficking. As part of the agreement signed in June 2002 with Jamaica, ion scanners were provided by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to the Jamaican authorities.
Now, following the success of "Operation Airbridge", British Customs says, Eastern Caribbean countries are considering using similar ion scan technology, to be provided by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office with training from Customs, to deal with their increasing cocaine trafficking problem.
According to British Customs, the authorities in the UK arrested 144 cocaine couriers in the first six months of the operation of the ion scan machines in Jamaica, compared to 422 in the same six-month period in 2001; in Jamaica 166 drug couriers were arrested, compared with just 17 in the same period.
(Since the installation of the IonScan machines at Norman Manley International Airport, east Kingston, and Sangster International Airport, Montego Bay, many of the drug couriers arrested in the United Kingdom have come from the Eastern Caribbean, especially St. Maarten in the Dutch Antilles where smugglers have been swallowing the cocaine in cat and goat intestine, instead of latex-made condoms, in a bid to thwart detection by x-ray machines.)
The smuggling of cocaine from Jamaica by ingestion had grown steadily since the late 1990s and in 2001/2002 more than 800 couriers from Jamaica were arrested in the UK.
