While trafficking a mere 15g of heroin can result in a death sentence, experts say some smugglers are drawn to Singapore for its excellent international air connections and, paradoxically, its fearsome approach to drugs. -- ST PHOTO: DESMOND WEE
DESPITE some of the strictest drug laws in the world, newly-released figures suggest a growing number of heroin smugglers could be using Singapore as a transit point.
In the first nine months of this year, 46kg of heroin has been seized, nearly three times the total for the whole of last year.
The haul has led crime experts to suspect that trafficking has increased. Seizures from previous years indicate that this year's cache is likely far too much to be consumed locally.
Also, some 11kg of this year's haul is the purest grade of the drug, heroin No. 4, which is rarely consumed here.
It is injected by addicts and the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) believes that it was not meant for the local market; instead it was likely bound for the US and Europe.
While trafficking a mere 15g of heroin can result in a death sentence, experts say some smugglers are drawn to Singapore for its excellent international air connections and, paradoxically, its fearsome approach to drugs.
US and European authorities are lulled into assuming that most smugglers would avoid Singapore at all costs, said Dr Thomas Pietschmann, a researcher with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
'Flights out of Singapore are, in general, less controlled in the United States or in Europe than flights out of Myanmar, Thailand, Afghanistan or Pakistan,' he said.
This point is conceded by CNB spokesman Agnes Lim.
She said that while the strict laws and stiff penalties deter the use of Singapore as a transit point, there are always people 'who are prepared to risk their lives to traffick drugs because of the lure of high profits.'
More heroin is flooding into Singapore mainly because of last year's bumper opium harvests in the Golden Triangle between Thailand, Laos and Mynamar as well as Afghanistan, by far the world's leading producer of the crop.
Opium is the raw material used in making heroin and the UNODC estimated that Afghanistan churned out 8,200 tonnes of it in 2007, almost doubling the global output of illegal opium from 2005.
Indian and Pakistani narcotic officials had warned that more heroin would be heading to Southeast Asia and they have been proved correct.
Dr Pietschmann assumes that drug trafficking in Singapore is rising as the amount of heroin seized has consistently increased from 6kg in 2006, to 17kg last year, to a staggering 46kg in the first nine months of this year.
At the same time, there has not been a significant spike in the number of heroin abusers or arrests.
From January to June, 384 heroin abusers were arrested, only 38 more than in the previous six-month period.
