Cartels produce more drugs as agencies ramp up enforcement

KUALA LUMPUR: Increased cooperation among law enforcement agencies around the world has tightened the noose on the global illicit drugs trade but this has also led to cartels cranking up production.

Bukit Aman Narcotics Crime Investigation Department deputy director Deputy Comm Datuk Kang Chez Chiang said successful seizures following increased cooperation with other agencies had led to an “unprecedented level” of increase in drugs production.

“The syndicates’ answer to everything is more drugs. If we catch one drug mule carrying a bag of drugs on a plane, they will send a whole plane load of drug mules the next time.

“That actually happened in London where a flight from Jamaica saw everyone on the plane carrying drugs,” he said during an interview in Bukit Aman.

It took years of handshakes and meetings, said DCP Kang, for law enforcement agencies to begin trusting each other with intelligence vital in taking down the drug syndicates.

“Starting in 1996, we wanted to forge closer working ties with our counterparts in this region and around the world as syndicates and cartels, fuelled by globalisation, began setting up international networks.

“These syndicates have spies everywhere and nobody wanted to share painstakingly gathered and sensitive intelligence that could easily fall into the wrong hands,” he said.

However, the cooperation and trust built up over the years began to show, with the Malaysian police seizing 11 tonnes of drugs worth around RM600mil since 2010 based on intelligence provided by their counterparts.

“Since 2010, we have worked with agencies like the United States’ Drug Enforcement Administration, Singapore’s Central Narcotics Bureau, China’s National Narcotics Control Commission and the Togo National Police – just to name a few.

“We have carried out 121 operations and arrested 572 men and 82 women in that period,” he said.

The global drugs trade, said DCP Kang, was vast, with heroin and cannabis from the Golden Triangle in northern Myanmar working its way through South-East Asia before going to other parts of the world, ecstasy from Europe, ketamine from India, methamphetamines and eramin 5 from China and Taiwan, and cocaine from Latin America.

“Air travel is getting cheaper. Transportation, communication and logistics are becoming easier as countries build more roads and trade with each other. These things also make smuggling drugs easier and more lucrative.

“Syndicates even fly their chemists to other countries to set up drug labs for localised production,” he said.

Police and their counterparts, said DCP Kang, had to step up their game to continue the fight.

“We are constantly communicating with each other and sharing intelligence. We have no choice.”

If we catch one drug mule carrying a bag of drugs on a plane, they will send a whole plane load of drug mules the next time. DCP Datuk Kang Chez Chiang