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| Saturday, 4 October 2003 |
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PNB widens net to nab key drug traffickers by Asanga Warnakulasuriya The Police Narcotics Bureau (PNB) will fine tune its investigation strategy to net 15 more 'A Grade' drug traffickers operating both locally and internationally. The PNB has already netted 18 from the A Grade list of drug traffickers with yet another 15 still at large, Director PNB, SSP Pujith Jayasundara told the Daily News yesterday. The different grades identifies the trafficker, his activities in the global mafia network and the approximate amount of drugs he deals with. The modified strategy will give PNB officers the freedom to maintain their own private informants and documents which were earlier with the Director, the SSP said. The new strategy tested for the first time for the Kelanitissa drug raid on Wednesday, proved successful when PNB officers seized Rs. 2.6 million worth of drugs, the SSP said. "In most cases, it is not always the most wanted kingpins that are behind the scene, but dealers and sub dealers funded by the international narcotics mafia carry out the trafficking using most sophisticated methods, undetectable to the naked eye," he said. One of the most frequent methods used by modern traffickers is to transport drugs by way of "swallowed" condoms. The risk of the condom exploding inside the stomach within 12 hours is taken by the traffickers. The Director said that Sri Lanka acts mostly as a transit point for drug trafficking. Drugs are being transported from the Middle East to Indian subcontinent and vice versa via Sri Lanka. "The PNB has already identified Golden Crescent (Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan) and Golden Triangle (Myanmar, Laos and Thailand) as the two main regions supplying drugs to Sri Lanka," the Director said. The main route used by the traffickers is Rameshwaram, Thalaimannar, Mannar to Vavuniya. Drugs occupy the number one spot in Sri Lanka's black economy with statistics showing that a whopping Rs. 50 million a day is being spent by drug addicts for their "fix", the SSP said. The PNB research had revealed that during 2001-2002, roughly over 100,000 drug addicts throughout the country each spent an average of Rs. 500 for drugs on a daily basis. This amount fluctuated from Rs. 500 to Rs. 25,000 depending on the addicts' economic level. A further revelation was that a large percentage of addicts were in the over 30 age group while those between 25-29 and 20-24 age categories were also prominent in the list of addicts. But the number of cases recorded may defer from the actual figures since most cases involving students are not being recorded, the SSP added. The biggest drug deal recorded so far is a 36kg haul of heroin taken into custody from Chilaw while 10 kg of heroin was seized from Kollupitiya in March - the largest detection for 2003. |
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