Police seize £1.2m of cocaine in drug raids

POLICE have found cocaine worth an estimated £1.2 million after drug raids in Dundee.

Officers searched a home in the Charleston area of the city on Thursday, where they recovered £1m worth of the class A drug.

A 26-year-old man has been charged following the discovery.

Police later recovered more cocaine worth £200,000 after stopping a vehicle in Dundee, when they also seized £120,000 of cash.

A 33-year-old man has been charged over that find.

Both men are due to appear at Dundee Sheriff Court on Monday.

Police have refused to confirm the exact locations of the discoveries due to “operational reasons”.

Detective Inspector Julia Ogilvie said: “Drugs cause significant harm to our communities and Police Scotland is committed to taking all necessary steps to prevent the distribution and supply of illicit drugs.

“Anyone with information or concerns about drug misuse should contact officers on 101 or make a call anonymously to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.”

It comes after new figures showed drug crimes in Dundee fell by more than a third between April last year and March this year.

A total of 829 drug crimes were recorded in the city between April 1 2021 and the end of March this year, compared to 1,255 in the year prior – a fall of nearly 34%.

Across Scotland the number of such crimes dropped by 20% year-on-year – down 17.8% for supply offences and 20.6% for possessions – and fell by 15.8% on the five-year mean.

Police Scotland’s performance report said the decrease was mainly due to drops in the months leading up to and during November last year, when competing demands such as preparation and policing of COP26 in Glasgow, as well as staff absences due to Covid-19, restricted capacity in this area.

The report also said several successful police operations targeting high-level organised crime have removed large volumes of equipment used in drug supply and taken large quantities of drugs off the streets.

The city has been at the epicentre of Scotland’s drug deaths crisis in recent years and has one of the highest drug-related death rates in the country.

Earlier this year, a report by the Dundee Drugs Commission said the scale of the crisis has been “underestimated” and drastic improvements to key services will be essential if fatalities are to be brought down.

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