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Swedish customs confiscate millions of pills

Xinhua, February 10, 2016 Adjust font size:

Swedish Customs confiscated large amounts of doping agents, pharmaceuticals and dangerous substances as a result of boosting efforts against illegal trading and smuggling, local media reported on Tuesday.

During a four-week period in 2015, Swedish Customs increased their efforts to clamp down on narcotics trading by boosting staff numbers.

The aim was also to get a better grasp of the extent of narcotics smuggling that happens via the postal service and couriers. As a result, there was a significant rise in the number of sweeps carried out by customs officers.

There were 2,132 confiscations during the month-long operation, compared with around 400 in the same period the year before.

"When we quadrupled our staff numbers we of course expected to see real effects. But the fact that we would carry out over 2,000 confiscations of items that would have been distributed across 517 locations in Sweden was pretty surprising," Bertil Ostgard of Swedish Customs told news agency TT.

As part of the operation, customs officers checked postal items from around 100 countries, with most of the confiscated items coming from Singapore, Britain, India and the Netherlands.

A majority of the items were pharmaceuticals, followed by doping agents, products carrying health risks, and addictive substances. During the four-week operation, Swedish Customs found 1.7 million doping pills and around 60,000 capsules containing the narcotic substance Tramadol.

The internet trade in narcotics is growing and people around Sweden are ordering substances like Metizolam, which has similar effects to Valium and Sobril.

"It has a calming effect and can be dangerous in combination with alcohol and other drugs," said Jenny Aberg who works at the Swedish Customs lab.

Swedish Customs also found cocaine, amphetamine and cannabis as well as several substances that have not yet been classified as narcotics but that customs and police officers have the right to confiscate and destroy.

"You can't hold anyone liable for these drugs but you can get them off the market," said Ostgard. Endit