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Gary Burgess reports
Jersey's Customs Department say a lack of staff means they are not catching as many drugs smugglers as they did in the past.
Last year they seized half a million pounds worth - the lowest in five years.
By comparison, in 2009 they confiscated more than £2.5 million worth.
The Head of the department, Michael Robinson, says the slump is due in part because last year cutbacks forced them to get rid of one of their intelligence officers.
Mr Robinson said: "My concern is that because of understaffing, especially at peak times, we have to abandon some customs controls on an almost daily basis, and on those occasions we are simply not there to detect smugglers."
They were also forced to lose one of their passport officers and that meant visitors to the island were kept queuing longer than normal.
In 2011 there were 113 separate drug seizures, with a total value of £580,232.
Heroin and cannabis resin made up the majority of that total, with more than half the seizures being made at the Post Office.
Latest figures also show a 50% increase in the number of cigarette and tobacco seizures last year, up to 578 in total.
What do YOU think? Should we have more customs officers? What do you think of the figures? Let us know below...
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Posted By: sthelierresident on 03-May-2012
Everytime i come through customs on the liverpool flight I am stopped and searched at customs as I am a young male - no stereotypes or discrimination there hey! When I have come through with my parents they don't stop me, apparently only single males under 25 try to smuggle drugs into Jersey
Posted By: percy egre on 03-May-2012
How can they blame the loss of one intelligence officer on such a dramatic fall in value. Instead of stopping people for minor offences should they not be tackling the serious drug problems. The management shoud hang their heads in shame
Posted By: SPUD on 03-May-2012
Income = £53.5 million... Expenditure = £5.5m I THINK THAT THEY CAN AFFORD A FEW MORE STAFF, DON'T YOU?
Posted By: wan on 02-May-2012
Customs officers trained to catch drug dealers are spending their time opening parcels and checking whether GST has been paid. Many more will be needed for this "very important job" as hard up islanders switch for deals online and make great savings. In the meantime drug dealers get away with murder
Posted By: Tracey St Saviours on 02-May-2012
Surely by publicising this - it is just an open invitation now to drug traffickers - come to Jersey we won't check you - we got no staff!!!! Bit of a stupid thing to do if you ask me.
Posted By: percy on 02-May-2012
shortage of staff cannot be the issue, someone wants to ask why Customs and the Police have seperate intelligence units, They use to have a joint one but they fell out. Someone needs to ask how much this has cost the island
Posted By: Captain Pugwash on 02-May-2012
Now If I Was the smuggling kind I would be worried about bringing in a few extra cigarettes for Aunty Flo, or a pair of knock off sunny’s as they seem to be hot to trot on that front and not so worried about the importation of drugs like heroin pity really as in this time of austerity Aunty Flo enjoys a quiet smoke on the porch......... so why all the fuss and aggressive policing and prosecution of King Curtis to then turn around and throw your hands up in the air and to actively stop pursuing drug smugglers but hammer the ordinary citizen with a few extra smokes or bottle of whiskey……….shame on you……..so when the streets are awash with drug addicts and drugs who will be to blame and at what cost to society
Posted By: Fluffy Bunny on 02-May-2012
It would be nice to know if anybody from Custom's reads these and if they have the balls to come & comment on what we have all had to say on this matter.
Come on Customs come & show your hand in these matters.
Posted By: dave St Saviour on 02-May-2012
you come off the london city flight no officer's in sight but get off a liverpool flight and they are out in force. Welcome to jersey north west travellers or drug importers.
Posted By: Harry, St Helier on 02-May-2012
Get more dogs:
Cheaper than people; with a couple of full time dogs at the harbour and airport, they could scan every passenger and vehicle. I would be happy to be delayed if all the drug dealing scum were caught at ports of entry.
Posted By: Fluffy Bunny on 02-May-2012
Perhaps, if they were not so interested in people bringing back an extra few cigarettes or 1 more bottle of wine, they would catch the Criminals with the Drug that then get sold of our streets.
Posted By: Tobias St Saviour on 02-May-2012
This is not at all surprising. Indeed, the wife and I were saying just a couple of weeks ago, that whilst customs are pratting around checking that incoming parcels are within the GST threshold, and busily looking out for people carrying too many duty free cigarettes etc, the drug traffickers must be loving it, and I expect they are laughing all the way to the bank.
"Priorities all mixed up they are", as Master Yoda would have said.
Alternatively - as pointed out by a couple of reality-sheltered commenters - perhaps there is suddenly less drug trafficking going on here this year, LOL.
Posted By: james1 on 02-May-2012
Seizures of illegal drugs down significantly.
Seizures of legal tobacco up significantly
Unless the public are suddenly disproportionately worried about cigarette smugglers, you're doing it wrong. (Or you need somebody who knows a bit about PR to do your press releases).
Makes you wonder about priorities. Are customs there to protect the island, or make money. These results would seem to point to the latter.
Posted By: Lord Haw Haw on 02-May-2012
What a silly statement and typical of a civil servant.
Is he actually saying that the loss of one staff member has had such an enormous impact?
Maybe the lack of drug smugglers being caught means that less people are smuggling drugs!
Judging by the figures which show an increase in tobacco seizures it looks like they prefer looking for people with an extra box of 200 duty free in their bag rather than getting out there and getting their hands dirty with a bit of hard graft. Get the overpaid shiny suited managers out of their offices and into the trenches!
Posted By: mallouin St Brelade on 02-May-2012
Just perhaps if they eased up on the "revenue" items they may have more control of illegal substances.Of course this could also mean they have been more successful as hauls are down?
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02/05/2012
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