PSNI 'dealing with 90 organised crime gangs at any given time'
The PSNI has revealed its Organised Crime Task Force is dealing with 90 criminal gangs operating in NI at any give time.
Last updated 18th Sep 2019
It comes as police revealed their annual figures in a report by the OCTF.
Detective Superintendent Rachel Shields told Downtown and Cool FM news
"So at any given time, it's difficult to assess, but at the minute we're managing at varying degrees about 90 organised crime gangs," she said.
"Within that, there would be a cross-border element to those gangs and we would assess about 75% of those top be involved in drugs."
That analysis is reflected in the stats from this latest annual report.
Drug seizures were up to 7,490, a rise of 618, while at 3,306, police made 185 more arrests than 2017/18.
Among the seizures were anabolic steroids.
A consignment of more than half a tonne of steroids was stopped at Heathrow last year, on its way to Belfast, with a further two tonnes found in later investigations.
"It does mean there's an increasing demand in Northern Ireland for drugs," said DSI Shields.
"That is something we work closely on with other partner, to try and reduce those risking taking behaviours which are unfortunately on the rise.
"We've seen an increase in seizures across cannabis, cocaine and heroin.
"The general worry for us would be the demand, it's a vicious circle.
"The more that's brought in, the more addictions there are and the greater demand for drugs."
As part of an OCTF operation, Italici, 632kg of annabolic steroids were stopped at Heathrow Airport on their way to Belfast.
A further two tonnes were seized overall by the National Crime Agency in Belfast.
It further identified an overseas criminal group that had been operating for 10 years and had trafficked at least 100 tonnes of the product.
A laboratory producing commercial quantities of Class C steroids was also discovered.
DSI Shields said it was not the most common type of drug they deal with, but they are monitoring developments.
"It's not necessarily a worry, but it's a change in the market, it's a change in demand and again if it makes money for criminals, then they will dabble," she said.
"Steroids would probably be a drug that most individuals wouldn't associate with being on sale or illegal in Northern Ireland.
"There is a shift in society though, people are more image conscious.
"They probably don't realise the harm they're causing to themselves, but also that organised crime gangs are capitalising on the fact they want to look good."
The OCTF ties together many different agencies including the Immigration Office, HMRC, Border Force, the NCA and Gardaà and covers crimes as wide ranging as smuggling, counterfeiting and the drugs trade.
However, DSI Shields said one element ties all these crimes together and informs the way agencies try and disrupt them.
"The cross-cutting theme is money laundering," she said.
"They have to find a way to hide and clean the money and that is another aspect of the work we do, stripping them of those assets and trying to understand how they launder that money."