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. ...

"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...