FBIS3-49567
"dreeu008_p_94013"
FBIS-EEU-94-008
Document Type:Daily Report
12 Jan 1994
POLAND
_o_Drug Smuggling Through Poland
94P20199A
94P20199A
Article Type:CSO
[Editorial Report] "Poland is becoming the best place for
distributing narcotics to West Europe, a money-laundering
station, and an area for hiding narcotic wares," reports the 19
December issue of the Poznan weekly WPROST. Adam Szyszko, chief
of the Second Department of the National Interpol Bureau, told
the Poznan weekly that since the outbreak of war in the former
Yugoslavia, which was the "traditional country that acted as a
transit point for drugs to West Europe, the `Polish idea' has
attracted drug gangs." Interpol is said to believe that the
equivalent of millions of dollars of narcotics-tainted money is
in Polish banks.
Since 1990, Poland has become a "transit port" for
narcotics.
WPROST says that Colombian cocaine and West African hashish and
marijuana make their way to either the ports of Szczecin and
Gdynia or to Warsaw's Okecie airport, from which they are
shipped to France, Germany, and Great Britain. Figures on
customs seizures indicate that Okecie airport is being used more
often than it had been in the past. On 1 December, for example,
the Polish Customs Service seized a half-ton of marijuana that
had arrived on a KLM flight from Lagos, Nigeria, marked as fish.
"Just the fact that the shipment was from Nigeria caused
suspicion because we do not import fish from that region into
Poland," said one official.
Interpol's Szyszko says that the couriers are often
protected
by diplomatic immunity, which "seriously complicates the
situation." The ambassador of Costa Rica himself was caught at
Okecie airport with 12 kg of heroin in his baggage.
One of the most ingenious plans was devised by German
smugglers. As Mr. Szyszko describes it, large parcels of
narcotics were to be sent to Poland, where they would be
repackaged, receive new papers, and be sent on their way to
Hamburg to cover up the sources of the drugs.
WPROST points out that the efforts of Polish Customs
officials to suppress the drug trade are hampered by Polish law,
which does not make mere possession and consumption of drugs a
crime. New banking laws have been enacted to prevent the use of
Polish banks for drug-money-laundering schemes, but there are
still loopholes that permit such schemes to flourish.
Wprost states that the involvement of international
organized
crime has further complicated enforcement efforts. According to
Szyszko, these groups are far better organized and technically
skilled than are Polish criminal groups. According to another
official, both the Italian Mafia and the Colombian Cali cartel
are involved in drug smuggling through Poland, with the Cali
cartel reportedly using Polish couriers to smuggle narcotics
over the Polish-German border." WPROST reports that police
consider the production and smuggling of amphetamines to be one
of the most dangerous recent developments. In the first quarter
of 1993, seven and a half tons of these synthetic drugs were
confiscated. Szyszko says that foreign money, principally from
the United States, is funding Polish amphetamine production.
The 28 December Warsaw daily ZYCIE WARSZAWY reports that
special police units have been formed to fight organized crime.
These units, which will be several-hundred-policemen strong and
will be under the direction of a Bureau for Fighting Organized
Crime, were scheduled to become operational on 1 January. The
bureau's work will be classified at the top secret level. It
already has 26 domestic and foreign groups operating on Polish
territory as its targets. Departments of the bureau will be
opened in Krakow, Katowice, Wroclaw, Szczecin, Lodz, Gdansk,
Poznan, Lublin, Bialystok, Olsztyn, and Bydgoszcz.