Criminology and Psychology

news report said Tuesday that Iranian forces killed nine armed drug traffickers. Irans Fars news agency said the clash took place between security forces and the alleged smugglers in a desert area of the southeastern Kerman province. "In a clash between security forces and bandits, nine drug smugglers were killed and a large amount of weapons was destroyed," the report said. The region is known to be a major smuggling route for drugs and other illegal materials.

Thirteen people, including a retired Colombian policeman, were arrested in a drugs bust that netted 570 kilograms of cocaine in Spain, authorities said Sunday, AFP reported. Suspects from Spain, Colombia, Mexico and Italy were seized in the raids in Rubi and Barcelona in the northeast and Malaga in the south after a seven-month operation, Spanish police said in a statement.

Robert McDowall, 48, a driver for a Lisburn-based flower importer, and Frank Gallagher, 39, a career criminal from Springburn, Glasgow, appeared at the High Court in Kilmarnock to admit being concerned in the supply of drugs. SCDEA officers had trailed the lorry from Holland and tracked it 400 miles north after it was driven through Customs at the Harwich ferry terminal in Essex. They had been watching as McDowall met Gallagher at a Little Chef restaurant on the M74 at Dumfries. They were watching as Gallagher drove to the deserted Lochside Industrial Estate, with McDowall's truck following. And they were watching as Gallagher reversed up to the lorry trailer and the men started moving boxes to the car. Only then did they swoop, arresting both men. On December 17, the pair were back in court for sentencing. Gallagher, who had a previous drug dealing conviction, got 12 years and McDowall, an Irishman living in Ballantrae, Ayrshire, 10. Jailing the pair, Lord Hardie told Gallagher: &

According to Customs officials, the goods had been manifested as luggage but an inspection of the cargo by Customs officers revealed counterfeit Gucci, Prada, Jimmy Choo, Bulgari, Cartier, Chanel, Versace, Juicy Couture and other fraudulent brand name merchandise.U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials announced that they recently seized more than $22 million in merchandise from China at the Port of Oakland. Customs officials said that on May 9 officers inspected shipping containers which had recently been unloaded from the M/V Kota Salam, which had arrived from China. Customs officials said labels for various designers were also found hidden three suitcases deep, with one inside the other. The labels are normally tagged onto a cheaply made product to make it seem like it's an authentic item, according to Customs officials.Richard Vigna, the Customs' director of field operations for the San Francisco area, said, "The manufacturing of fake products for sale takes milli

Drug researchers say this week's haul of ecstasy powder, or MDMA, will have an effect on the national ecstasy market.On Monday a joint operation between Federal and state police forces arrested people in several cities. Police tracking the drug ring had earlier seized and substituted 45 kilograms of ecstasy ingredient MDMA, and kept monitoring the operation before making the arrests.In Western Australia, Police raided a house in Lockridge, seizing a pill press and charging three men with importation and possession charges.Steven Alsop from the National Drug Research Institute at Curtin University says such a big haul will affect use."It has an enormous impact. Two main factors influence drug use and that is supply and demand," he said."Clearly this will reduce supply and will have an impact on the availability and that will reduce the likelihood that some people will be able to use the drug."He says the haul will help, but education programs are also needed. &qu

"The bodies had been there for at least a week. They were spotted by local people out hunting," a municipal police spokesman said.The area where the bodies were found is one of many along the border that gangs use to smuggle marijuana and cocaine into the United States. Four people believed to be Americans were shot in the head and dumped in a notorious drug-smuggling area in northern Mexico near the California border, Mexican police said.Police in the beach town of Rosarito, across the border from San Diego, said they discovered the bodies of three men and a woman on Sunday in an abandoned car in a remote patch of scrubland near the Pacific coast.Police concluded the victims were US citizens because the vehicle had California licence plates, the men appeared to be black, the woman was white and a US driver's licence was found in the car, the spokesman said.Murders have jumped in Mexico this year, the bulk of them linked to a war between rival drug cartels and security fo

Colin 'Smigger' Smith, Britain's so-called Cocaine King with an estimated personal fortune of £200m, murdered in a gangland hit. Six months on, his assassin remains at large despite a massive police investigation. Only now, though, can the circumstances behind the murder of Britain's biggest cocaine baron be revealed. It is a vicious tale of duplicity, violence and retribution in the shadowy world of international drug dealing.But Smith's killing carries more profound implications, threatening a ferocious war between Britain's original drug syndicate, the so-called Liverpool mafia, and the largest Colombian cocaine suppliers to Europe, the Cali cartels. At stake, say underworld sources, is control of Britain's £2bn cocaine market. They revealed that Merseyside's crime gangs believe Colombian cartels ordered the hit on Smith over a missing consignment of the Class A narcotic worth £72m.Merseyside police are aware of at least one meeting in which the heads

Three people were arrested for smuggling cocaine into Cape Town and OR Tambo international airports, the police's national head offices said on Tuesday. Captain Dennis Adriao said one man, aged 28, was arrested at OR Tambo airport on Saturday with 5.7 kilograms of cocaine in his possession. The cocaine had an estimated value of R5-million. The man had arrived on a flight from Lisbon in Portugal. He was a South African citizen. He had hidden the cocaine in desktop pen holders and small lotion bottles. He appeared before the Kempton Park Magistrate's Court on Monday on charges of dealing in drugs and drug smuggling. A 28-year-old man and a 21-year-old woman were arrested at Cape Town International Airport on Monday in possession of eight kilograms of cocaine valued at R10-million. The pair had flown in from Buenos Aires in Argentina. Both were Durban residents and South African citizens. The two would appear before the Bellevue Magistrate's Court in Cape Town on charges of dr

Dubai Police have arrested two men in possession of more than six kg of heroin, an official said yesterday. He said the drugs found on the Africans was worth a total of more than dhs200,000. “They wanted to smuggle it to Asia, Europe and Africa but we arrested them,” he said.Officers were alerted to the men after a suspect package at Cargo Village was inspected and found to contain some heroin pills. They then traced the box and raided the mens’ flat in Dubai. “One of them still had heroin pills in his stomach,” the police official said. The men have now been referred to public prosecution.

The anti narcotics officials of the Dubai police have busted an international drugs trafficking gang which was planning to smuggle a huge quantity of heroin to a number of countries, WAM news agency reported Monday. The anti-narcotics officials seized over 6.1 kg heroin worth 615,200 United Arab Emirates dirhams ($167,730) from the African gang during a raid Sunday, an official with the Crime Investigation Department said.“The arrest of the African gang was triggered by police’s discovery of a filter in the parcel in which the heroin capsules, weighing over 1.1 kg, were hidden at Dubai cargo village. The parcel was ready to be flown to an African country,” the official said.After the discovery of the parcel, the CID tracked down the sender, who was staying at a hotel in Dubai.The police raided his room and found many heroin capsules, weighing 4,458 kg. He was arrested along with one of his aides who police suspected to have swallowed some strange materials.According to the police, the

35-year-old West Australian man has been charged with allegedly trying to smuggle cocaine inside bottles of alcohol.Customs officers at Sydney Airport stopped the man for a baggage check when he arrived on a flight from Tahiti on Saturday. During the search, the officers became suspicious about the contents of a bottle of Irish Cream liqueur and a bottle of fruit cream. Testing indicated the presence of cocaine in the bottles. The man is due to appear in Sydney's Central Local Court today.

At least seven Cordillera women aspiring for overseas work have turned up in Hong Kong detention centers after they were accused of acting as “drug mules” for an illegal drug syndicate, the Inquirer learned on Tuesday. A “mule” is the law enforcement term for an unwitting drug courier, according to officials of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) here.Ebgan Inc., a gender rights group, said all of these Filipinos are women, who were enticed to travel to China for free.Lynn Madalang, Ebgan executive director, said the offer of free Hong Kong trips is convenient for local women applying for work overseas.“Some of them are escaping bad relationships or abusive spouses, so a free trip is so tempting, even if you should be concerned that there doesn’t seem to be any strings attached,” Madalang said.She said many migrant workers also believe that proof of travel would increase their chances of securing travel visas for work abroad. But the women were asked to carry suspicious pieces o

Five people have been arrested and amphetamines with an estimated street value of more than £1m found during a police raid on Teesside. The 12 kilo haul is believed to be one of the largest seizures of the drug in the Cleveland force area. It was discovered during a police raid at two properties in the Braid Crescent area of Billingham. The three men and two women, aged between 18 and 28 and all local, are helping police with their inquiries.

Two Preston men and a Kendal man have been remanded in custody accused of conspiracy to import cocaine worth £15 million. Cumbria Police discovered 140kg of the class A drug after CID officers to stopped and searched two lorries at the port of Harwich in Essex.The seizure of the consignment, which arrived via Holland, is understood to be one of the biggest ever made on the UK mainland,Appearing before South Lakeland magistrates in Kendal, Darren Morris, 32, of Preston, Mark Neville, 41, also of Preston; and Peter Hannigan, 49, of Kendal, were charged with importing illegal drugs.They were all remanded to appear at Carlisle Crown Court on July 7.Detectives in Cumbria are continuing to question a 55-year-old man arrested in Nottingham.

Jodie Power has admitted lying about Schapelle Corby's "drug-free" record, but says her sister, Mercedes, definitely smuggled marijuana "inside her" on trips to Bali.Power said she lied on national TV, and agreed there is an "enormous gulf" between what she told Channel 7's Today Tonight and the ABC about Mercedes and Schappelle Corby's involvement with drugs. In the NSW Supreme Court today, Power admitted lying on the ABC's 7.30 Report about Schapelle Corby having a drug free record "to protect her". In an interview with The 7.30 Report back in March 2005, Power said: "I have never, never seen Schapelle smoke marijuana, never seen her take drugs." In the witness box at the NSW Supreme Court this afternoon, she said that was a lie. "I lied that I hadn't seen her taking drugs," she said, adding it was "to protect her...to get her out of jail". Power, a former best friend of Mercedes Corby, is faci

Edwin Naeyaert, 30, of Ghent, Belgium, was charged with attempting to smuggle drugs into the UK and remanded in custody. He is due to appear before magistrates in Folkestone.Belgian lorry driver is to appear in court in Folkestone on Tuesday charged with drug smuggling after 330lb of cannabis was found hidden among pallets of frozen potato chips. The drugs, with a street value of about £468,000, were seized by officers from the newly formed UK Border Agency (UKBA) who searched the lorry at Coquelles Eurotunnel Terminal in France on Sunday night.

Punitha K K Samy, 50, who was last heard of in August 2006, is apparently yet another case of women travelling alone being used as drug carriers by international syndicates that operate in several countries including India, say Malaysian authorities.Her case could boost the government's controversial plan to make a law that would require a woman taking a flight alone to get permission from her family members.The Peruvian prison authorities have contacted Kalai Kumar, a friend and former employer in Ampang here, to inform that she was very ill. ''Punitha gave the prison authorities my contact number. They told me she is suffering from stomach cancer and tuberculosis,'' Kumar told the New Straits Times on Sunday. ''The caller told me they could not contact Punitha's family and that she gave them my name,'' Kumar, who also goes by the spiritual name of Tarapith Yantra Yogi and is the founder of the Tantra Yoga Hindu Organisation, said. He said Punit

The 25-year-old, from Venezuela, was stopped by customs officers as she stepped off a flight from Malaga, Spain.A woman is being quizzed by gardai after the seizure of 210,000 euro worth of cocaine at Cork Airport.The cocaine was allegedly discovered in the woman's personal baggage.

Dutch man has appeared in court charged in connection with a seizure of 100 small packages of cocaine at Belfast International Airport. Customs officers intercepted the man as he arrived on a flight from Amsterdam on Tuesday. The 24-year-old was charged with attempting to smuggle drugs. He appeared on Friday before Larne Magistrates Court, where he was remanded in custody. He is to appear again via videolink later this month.

A group of ten illegal immigrants were getting weekly shipments of drugs smuggled in from Mexico. Phoenix police lieutenant Vince Piano said their east Valley customers were mostly teens and young adults. "The group was so regimented over the past ten years that they would work throughout the day and make about $8,000-$10,000 a day just distributing at street level," Piano said. Piano said both buyers and sellers were booked into jail. They seized guns, approximately nine pounds of heroin, five kilos of cocaine and over $200,000 in cash.

Fifteen kilograms of cocaine were seized in a joint raid by Montenegrin and Croatian police on April 28. Two arrests were made. Montenegrin police stated that the two arrestees, identified only as E.M. and R.M., are directors of the Esko Company, which is headquartered in the town of Rožaje. Police stated that the pair were using the company’s license to import agricultural products as a front for organising, financing and smuggling cocaine from Ecuador. E.M and R.M. were arrested when a container, that police believe entered Montenegro through the Port of Bar, was being unloaded from a truck. The container was filled with frozen fruit pulp. Police found one kilogram of pure cocaine hidden in the offering from South America. The other 14 kilograms were confiscated by Croatian police. Montenegrin police stated that an intense investigation is ongoing in order to uncover the other individuals who participated in the international drug smuggling ring.