ANNEX B: NETHERLANDS VISIT NOTES
We visited the Netherlands on 2-3 November 2009 to
see scanning operations in place at the container port in Rotterdam
and at Schiphol international airport in Amsterdam. The Netherlands
is a major European transit country for cocaine smuggling—with
small-scale imports through Schiphol airport and large-scale imports
via container ships at Rotterdam port—and has a high prevalence
of cocaine use, similar to the UK.
Visit to Schiphol airport
Visited the Dutch Royal Marechaussee (responsible
for all police tasks at the airport) at Schiphol airport, Amsterdam.
Following a parliamentary resolution in 2003, a policy of 100%
customs checks was implemented on incoming flights from certain
countries known for drugs smuggling - eg. Surinam, Dutch Antilles.
Saw prison/detention complex where drugs mules are
held, including recovered drugs hauls.
100% customs checks
- 100% customs checks were implemented
in 2003 following a rapid rise in cocaine smuggling from the Dutch
Antilles and Suriname - up to 50 mule per flight. On one flight
from Curacao , 85 out of 200 passengers were found to have swallowed
cocaine.
- Following introduction of 100% checks, there
are now routinely between 1 and 7 'swallowers' detained on flights
from these countries. However, certain routes remained problematic
- for example in 2007, 75 passengers were arrested on a flight
from Casablanca, and 23 out of 68 passengers on a flight from
Abuja.
Drugs mules
- It only takes one mule to successfully
smuggle cocaine through for a criminal gang to break even financially,
two to turn a profit. So drugs barons can risk a high proportion
of detections.
- Each mule swallows about 1kg of cocaine. That
1kg would have a street value in Manchester, for example, of about
£120,000 (if pure - if cut, many times more).
- 50% of cocaine at the airport is smuggled by
'swallowers' and 50% in luggage.
- A mule carries on average 900g pure cocaine
- A suitcase contains on average 3,500g
- Drugs mules are paid on average €5,000 per
trip. Customs routinely see the same mules again and again - if
caught and deported, the gangs will force them to make another
trip. One girl was 15 yrs old at her initial arrest, and had been
picked up 5 times further since then.
- 21,000 mules have been arrested since October
2003 (introduction of 100% customs)
- The profile of mules is changing - it used to
be men, but is increasingly women, the elderly, families. Even
a South American ex-minister for foreign affairs in one case.
- Customs officials estimate around 10% of mules
are opportunistic - for example, they are offered money on the
beach whilst on holiday
- There is very little likelihood that someone
carrying drugs in their luggage would be unaware that they were
there
- Many mules are desperate and coerced into carrying
Smuggling techniques
- There are similar drug smuggling
techniques in every international airport
- With luggage, gangs often have accomplices at
check ins and in baggage handling, who can pick up bags from the
baggage belt and retrieve the drugs.
- It can be very hard to detect such corruption
and prove it - for example baggage handlers can claim ignorance
or that they are just doing their job. There are 56 million pieces
of luggage processed at Schiphol annually. Drugs bribes can be
attractive to poorly paid baggage handlers.
- One vaginal pellet typically contains 200-350g
of cocaine, some are up to 500g.
Profiling/detection
- Customs officers profile and
target passengers based on 22 risk factors, including physical
appearance and behaviour. Indicators include passengers who don't
eat or drink on the flight, whites of eyes showing, visas for
South America in their passport. If 6 of the 22 risk factors are
met the authorities can detain a passenger.
- 99% of suspects profiled turn out to be suspicious.
- Customs officers also observe the baggage halls
for strange behaviour.
- Dutch customs estimate that they catch about
30% of smuggled drugs - they say that the average at other international
airports is about 14%.
- There are x-ray machines at some countries of
departure, including Suriname and Curacao - if drugs are found,
passengers are turned away
Detention
- Schiphol has 24 holding cells,
each with space for 2 detainees
- A passenger is detained for around 36 hours in
the cell, until they request to use the toilet. Then they are
taken to the 'throne room', a special toilet attached to a processing
room where the waste is checked for drugs pellets.
- If drugs are found, the individual is then arrested,
charged on drugs offences and transferred to prison
Visit to Rotterdam container port
- Visited Rotterdam to see advanced
container scanning operation and drugs sniffer dogs.
- Rotterdam is the biggest port in Europe, in three
years its capacity will be 22 million containers per annum. It
has up to 11 million containers in storage at any one time. Along
with Amsterdam (5th biggest), it is a member of the
Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Le Havre, Felixstowe, Harwich (RALFH) group
- a coordinating body of the largest ports.
Tour of container scanning operations
- 4.4 tonnes of cocaine have
been seized since January 2008, street value is currently EUR60,000
per kilo.
- There has been a recent increase in drug traffic
from West Africa (possibly originating from the Caribbean).
- UKBA has two units based in the UK focused on
targeting searches and intelligence - container intelligence,
and targeting. Their emphasis is on sharing information rather
than seizures. The UK is "the end of the line", they
must trade information to encourage others to seize drugs before
they reach the UK.
- 1600 customs officers work in Rotterdam, including
15 sniffer dogs - 8 of these are dedicated to drugs work.
- 40,000 containers are scanned per year. The older
scanners can process about 20-25 containers per hour, the newer
scanners around 150 per hour.
- Containers are targeted based on risk profiling
- combination of factors such as strange trading patterns (eg.
scap metal from South America, or coconuts from Iceland), intelligence
reports and irregular paperwork (eg. papers put in just before
a ship sails).
- An electronic profiling system attempts "targeted
scanning" based on pre-arrival info (country of origin, contents
of containers (scrap metal) etc.) The scanner only operates around
20% of the time.
- 6,000 inspections (as opposed to scans) are undertaken
each year, there is a 5% success rate and of those 5%, 60-70%
result in a successful prosecution - ship owners are held liable
for drugs within their ships. From these 6,000 searches last year,
20 cocaine seizures were made.
- Gangs are often flexible, and will load or offload
containers at ports other than those they are registered to do
so at. Containers often stop at a string of ports, including Rotterdam,
Le Havre and Felixstowe.
- Onward travel of drugs from Rotterdam: around
60% takes place by road, 40% by barge and 15% by rail.
- There are efforts among the RALFH ports to co-ordinate
on minimum inspection standards in a bid to prevent "displacement"
of criminal activity. Dutch customs shares intelligence on suspect
containers with EU (including UK) partners via a secure electronic
system.
- Gangs devise innovative smuggling techniques
- eg. hidden amongst scrap metal, even concealed in torpedoes
underneath ships, or in ship cooling systems.
- Smugglers often only register and load containers
very shortly before a ship leaves port -this makes it hard for
authorities to take investigative action.
Meeting with Tom Drysen, Head of Dutch National
Crime Squad and Deputy Director, Europol
Ambassador Richard Arkwright gave
a short introduction:
- The Netherlands is a major
transit route, not just for cocaine, but for heroin and ecstasy
(synthetic drugs).
- There is a large UK criminal presence in this
trade and this presence is growing, especially in the heroin market.
- Dutch police report to the Interior Ministry,
priority for prosecutions is set by the Justice Ministry and drugs
policy is decided between the Health, Justice and Interior Departments.
- Drugs policy in the Netherlands draws a distinction
between hard and soft drugs and attempts to distinguish between
"users" and "traders"; drugs policy is based
on tolerance towards users and drug usage is a health rather than
a criminal issue. There are signs that public attitudes are hardening
against this.
- As a rule, Dutch consumption of hard drugs such
as heroin is lower than elsewhere in Europe, especially UK.
Tom Drysen:
- Organised criminals are not
committed to drugs trafficking, they are committed to profit;
reducing the profit from drugs will not therefore solve the problem
of organised crime, merely divert it elsewhere. Gangs are interested
in profit, not drugs and therefore preventing drug trafficking
should not be viewed as a "silver bullet".
- Criminals view the drugs market as "Europe",
not the UK, it is structured like a multi-national company with
separate "divisions".
- Police face a constant struggle to change and
adapt to different modus operandi, criminals learn just as much
from reports, studies, analysis etc. as the police.
- The Netherlands is a "natural" co-ordinating
centre - it possesses good infrastructure and transport facilities,
a generally tolerant policy towards issues such as prostitution
and cannabis, the Netherlands possesses a large number of ethnic
diasporas and is a "trading nation".
- Huge profit margins exist in the drugs trade;
a very low success rate still gives a profit. Equally, gangs
operate with no risk; if a smuggler is caught they are still liable
for the "lost" profit in turn this makes traffickers
dependent on the gangs.
Is it worth focusing efforts on "origin"
countries and tackling the problems at the source?
- Part of the problem is politics
- vast amounts of some economies are linked to the cocaine trade.
Preventing the initial export of cocaine will therefore require
longer-term societal changes - the "de-normalising"
of the industry.
- Large amounts of cooperation already occurs at
the operational (policing) level.
Is Europe (European Union) too long on research
and too short on action?
- Formal cooperation is lacking
- there are many different "drugs" institutions although
informal, personal cooperation is getting stronger. There may
be a stronger role for Europol in the future.
How should enforcement agencies be judged?
- There is a conflict between
politicians' demands for tangible results and benchmarks and how
law enforcement agencies need to operate - "one arrest doesn't
solve anything". The performance of law enforcement agencies
must be judged against the progress on tackling overall threats
in a given period. These threats should be decided upon and prioritised
by ministers and politicians. Focusing on the number of arrests,
amount of cocaine seized etc. could be counter-productive.
- Given the increasingly interlinked nature of
threats there is a need for common strategies.
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