Ship containers — the biggest drug problem

ALTHOUGH several successes have been recorded during last year in maritime drug law enforcement based operations, Flavio Mirella said the main threat was still posed by maritime-based drug trafficking with container trafficking accounting for the largest portion of the volume.

Mirella, the Caribbean representative for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Caribbean Regional Office (UNODC), was speaking yesterday at the launch of both the UNODC and International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) reports.  This was held at the Simon Bolivar Auditorium, Victoria Avenue, Port-of-Spain. Mirella said container trafficking is an area of control that will continue to demand greater efforts and resources as the Caribbean region strives to become a single market and economy for the movement of goods, people and services. He said further steps towards increased regional cooperation are expected with the further consolidation of the work of the Caricom Task Force on Crime and Security that is actively promoting greater levels of inter-regional cooperation.

Mirella added that cooperation is required even more across all law enforcement services (ie Customs, Police, Coast Guard) to deter drug trafficking through less conventional modalities such as the use of pleasure craft. He said the increased security at seaports implies that drug loading operations will be deterred but indications point to the Caribbean being used for loading operations outside territorial waters and thus outside the reach of the patrolling Coast Guard vessels. Mirella also spoke on seizure patterns saying that Jamaica was the place of origin of 70 percent of the marijuana confiscated among the large seizures made in the region. He added that Colombia is the alternative origin of over 20 percent of the cannabis seized while Venezuela, Dominica, and St Vincent and the Grenadines contribute with marginal amounts of exported marijuana. Mirella also said that an upward trend in seizures was recorded in 2001 and 2002, reversing a declining trend that started in 1996.  He also said that the reported prices of illicit drugs in the Caribbean did not increase from 2000 to 2001, and noted that heroin seizures are at a historical high.