Drug smugglers favor Oslo: “Sweden too” | The world

Oslo’s Mayor Anne Lindboe warns that increasingly drug traffickers are selecting Oslo after they deliver medicine to Europe. It’s because the authorities of their favourite Antwerp, which is the European capital of drug smuggling, and different main ports in Europe are tightening management.

Lindboe says that medicine with a price equal to as much as eight billion kroner have been imported by way of the port of Oslo, which receives 50-70 ships per week. Final yr they’d 243,000 containers, in keeping with NRK.

“Oslo’s favourite port for criminals”

– Plainly the port of Oslo is changing into a favourite port in Europe for hardened felony teams. They use a port that could be a little too poorly protected to smuggle their pork into Norway with its unfavourable results, says Mayor Anne Lindboe to NRK.

Norway ranks third in Europe in terms of importing cocaine – and Norwegian police are speaking about it and “cocaine-tsunami” on the way in which into the nation. The customs within the port of Oslo don’t have their very own scanner, however a cell phone that’s shared with the ports in Drammen and Fredrikstad, so customs officers typically should preserve X-ray machines they’ve of their arms to make use of, in keeping with NRK.

“Additionally applies to Sweden”

Karin Tanderø Schaug, president of the Norwegian Customs Officers Affiliation, warns that the state of affairs is getting worse. She says till the Guardian that the quantity of cocaine in Oslo is “alarming and rising”.

– When Antwerp has extra management and police, the criminals change their transport routes. Norway can simply be a transition nation. This additionally applies to Sweden, she says.

The quantity of cocaine seized in Antwerp has been reduce in half, customs authorities within the Belgian port metropolis mentioned earlier this yr. The explanation the smugglers are selecting different routes is as a result of Antwerp has elevated the police presence.