Drugs bust at Gatwick

[newswatcher]

Extracted from report in the "London Evening Standard":

Police have detained at least 22 passengers from a BA flight at Gatwick yesterday, arrriving from Jamaica. So far, at least 8 kilos of cocaine, estimated value £500k, have been recovered, some from the aircraft toilet system. 2 passengers were trailled to Brixton, where they were arrested with 5 others.

Another passenger had 16kilos of cannabis in his luggage, and three passengers were prevented from boarding in Kingston.

I'm sure it's a coincidence but the police operation was named Operation Trident!

[JPJ]

There is an enormous amount of cocaine coming from Jamaica at the moment, much of it carried by couriers who have swallowed it (sometimes up to half-a-kilo). Port Health are routinely x-raying pax for TB these days, and the drugs are coming up on the screen. A Customs person told me that one courier started to pass the packages while in flight. He went into the toilet and recycled them!

Very long prison sentences are being handed down, but it doesn't seem to be stemming the flow. There is a view that the pax ought to be screened at the departure end - at least that would save the £20k per year that it takes to keep them in prison.

[ 14 December 2001: Message edited by: JPJ ]

[CrashDive]

Don't worry JPJ - there's a plan (specifically targetting Jamaica, for the very reason you describe) and it involves BoarderGuard (http://www.imagingauto.com/bg.htm) units - other than that, I can't say too much about it at the moment.