Drugs unit gaining success despite lack of EU accord

Date: 07/03/1996

By Thomas Klau

POLICE forces across the EU are turning increasingly to the European Drugs Unit (EDU), forerunner of the criminal intelligence agency Europol, for help in their fight against smugglers and dealers.

A report from EDU chief Jürgen Storbeck, which will be presented to justice and home affairs ministers at their meeting on 19 March, shows that the unit dealt with no less than 1,474 official requests for information in 1995, three times as many as in the previous year.

Storbeck says that despite the continuing lack of accord on the convention which will govern Europol's activities, his staff have achieved “notable successes in the field of drug trafficking, with information exchanges leading to seizures and arrests”.

But he stresses the EDU will only become “truly effective” when the convention, currently blocked by the UK, is ratified and “the EDU becomes Europol”.

Towards the end of 1995, says Storbeck, there were “signs of increasing awareness of the EDU from investigators” in the various member states. Yet the “constraints which reduce the EDU's ability to match investigator's expectations” have often led to “disappointment and even frustration”, he stresses.

Storbeck's report shows that the fight against drug dealers remains the main focus of Europol activities, with 76&percent; of the information requests dealing with drug-related cases.

“The bulk of activity is related to the ever-growing drugs problem,” says the report. Another 12&percent; of requests were related to money-laundering activities, 8&percent; to the fight against cross-border vehicle theft, and 4&percent; to organised illegal immigration. Most of the specific requests addressed to the EDU were made “in support of sensitive investigations”, such as the checking of names, telephone numbers or vehicle licence plates.

A majority of requests handled by the agency's 90 personnel - 35 so-called liaison officers from national police forces and 55 staff members - came from Germany (449), with the UK (281) in second place and France (127) third.

The EDU also tries to keep close track of the evolution of the market in illegal drugs, logging the price of drugs both “at wholesale and retail level” in each member state every six months, and is constantly updating its growing data base on the ecstasy drug to help trace supplies back to producers.

In addition, it is keeping a watchful eye on ethnic criminal organisations such as the Italian Mafia, the Chinese Triads, organised Nigerian and Turkish gangs, groups coming from former Yugoslavia and crime threats emerging from Central and Eastern Europe.

Europol's increasing hunger for information has, however, already led to its first clash with MEPs concerned about possible infringements of civil rights.

The Italian presidency promised Parliament that the drug unit would scrap a secret data file on which it had stored information about the racial origin, the political or religious views and the sexual orientation of persons under observation.

But while this dossier would be dropped, the presidency explained, files which contain “potentially useful information” could not be ruled out.