Pubdate: Sun, 25 Apr 1999
Source: Age, The (Australia)
Copyright: 1999 David Syme & Co Ltd
Contact:  http://www.theage.com.au/
Author: David Adams

COCAINE GANGS EYE AUSTRALIA

Australia is being increasingly targeted by cocaine traffickers,
according to a leading expert on global drug trafficking trends.

Mr Ramachandra Sundaralingam, a consultant to Interpol, said: ``It
would seem that not only heroin has a market in Australia but cocaine
also has a developing market.'' He said the situation ``needs watching''.

Mr Sundaralingam, who was in Australia last month to brief federal
police and customs officers on global drug-trafficking trends, was
speaking from Interpol headquarters in Lyon. He said Venezuelan
authorities last month seized 131 kilograms of cocaine from a ship
container destined for Australia via Fiji. This followed the seizure
of a record 225 kilograms of cocaine in Australia last year.

Mr Sundaralingam said heroin would continue to be a problem, as the
bulk of the estimated 150 to 200 tonnes of heroin produced in
South-East Asia's Golden Triangle each year is shipped to Australia
and Canada.

He added that the ``entrenched'' presence of Asian crime groups in the
two countries was an important factor, and noted that the importation
of heroin into Australia was ``very well organised''.

According to the the Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence's
1997-98 Australian Illicit Drug Report, about 80 per cent of
Australia's heroin comes from the Golden Triangle. The rest originates
in the Golden Crescent region of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The report
said that while there was a decrease in the quantity of heroin
detected at the Australian customs border in 1997-98 (down from 169
kilograms in 1996-97 to 138 kilograms), there was an overall increase
in the amount of heroin seized in Australia from 237 kilograms in
1996-97 to 299 kilograms.

Mr Sundaralingam said that while heroin was traditionally channelled
from the Golden Triangle to the West through Thailand, new trafficking
routes had opened up in recent years in China, Hong Kong, Vietnam,
Cambodia and Laos.

Illustrating the difficulty of cutting off these supply routes, he
said that Hong Kong, for example, processes 9.2 million shipping
containers each year, a figure which breaks down into 25,000 a day,
1200 an hour and 19 a minute. Mr Sundaralingam said that when he asked
a senior customs official in Hong Kong how they policed what was in
the containers, he was told: ``Don't ask me that question.''
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