-Caveat Lector-
"Nationals of Central European countries are used as heroin smugglers
by Turkish and Kosovar Albanian criminal organizations."
from http://www.ogd.org/rapport/gb/RP07_2_TCHEQUE.html
CZECH REPUBLIC
The geographical situation of its territory, a crossroads
for the northern smuggling routes through Poland and the Balkans
route via Slovakia in the southeast, make the Czech Republic a
hub through which all sorts of drugs pass. It is also home to
immigrants from the CIS, Central Europe and the Balkans, a
melting-pot in which criminal gangs easily find recruits.
Nigerian traffickers also have one of their most important
bridgeheads in Central Europe. Drug-running problems are on the
rise at the same time as its transition to a free-market economy
is being held up as a model among the ex-communist countries. The
threat also comes from the fact that the gangs are using
neighboring Slovakia, which is much more vulnerable, as a transit
and storage platform. These illegal activities are also starting
to have serious effects on local consumption. More specifically,
the Czech Republic has since the start of 1996 been facing the
grave problem of a mushrooming domestic market in heroin.
Heroin Floods the Market
The intellectual influence of the former Czechoslovakia, and
particularly its capital, Prague, put it at the center of
academic research in Central Europe and also at the leading edge
of experiments with articifial paradises. The first cases of
morphine addition appeared in the last two decades of the
nineteenth century. After World War I, when the country gained
independence, cocaine from Vienna and Berlin enjoyed a huge vogue
in Prague and all the other big cities, with some 10,000 users.
After World War II, the fashion was to experiment with a
combination of morphine and cocaine. Under the communist regime,
with all its obstacles to contacts with the West and the general
impoverishment of the country, sniffing solvents and abusing
other legal products mushroomed, particularly among young people.
In the 1980s drug users turned to pharmaceuticals, of which the
country is a leading producer. The collapse of communism opened
the Czech Republic up to networks based in Central Asia, the
Middle East and even Latin America and Africa, either by direct
air links or through neighboring countries.
The influx of ex-Yugoslav citizens during the conflict there
only made matters worse.
Until very recently, the country's drug users took
pervitine, a methamphetamine manufactured locally from ephedrine
on a large scale, and since the 1970s, "brown", a substance
obtained from opiate medicines such as Solutan. Apart from a few
isolated cases, heroin only really appeared on the market in
1992-1993. The drug was first marketed in the form of cigarettes
containing heroin mixed with tobacco. But the price, 3000 kroner
(about US $120) per gram (50% to 60% pure) remained high for the
local purchasing power.
The typical user then was a businessman, around 25 years
old, for whom heroin was a means to escape the stress of daily
life. Heroin was distributed by "Yugoslav" gangs and Middle
Eastern criminals in exclusive restaurants and clubs.
During 1994, the price of heroin fell to about $40 a gram,
that is the price of pervitine. Heroin use quickly spread,
affecting for instance discos, dance halls, etc. At the same
time, the local underworld lost its place to criminal gangs with
international connections. Thus, a significant share of the
market was taken by gangs of Kosovo Albanians which are organized
on a clanic base. They usually invest in legal businesses, such
as restaurants and even small companies, and marry Czech women in
order to be allowed to stay in the country. However, they are
beginning to face stiff competition on the drug market from very
dynamic and violent Bulgarian gangs, which up to now controlled
the market for stolen cars and smuggling. Middle-eastern
criminals, who hitherto specialized in the hashish trade, have
just entered the heroin market, too. Some of them work for
Russian and Ukrainian wholesalers. On the whole, Czech citizens
are mere employees of these various organizations, as drivers,
couriers, stock minders, etc. The arrival of unsophisticated
heroin manufactured in Poland (called "the Pole") has also been
noted. It is particularly popular among users in northern Moravia
where it sells for half the price of "true" heroin. Drug use is
not punishable under Czech law so it is extremely difficult to
crack down on street dealers.
Elsewhere, Turkish organizations use the entire Czech
Republic as a transit territory for heroin from Turkey on its way
to the Schengen countries. For example, at the start of 1996,
Bulgarian police seized 150 kilograms of heroin in a car being
driven to Prague. For the Turkish rings Slovakia is a prime
location on the route for shipping Balkan heroin to the Czech and
German markets. The drug enters Slovakia mainly through two
border posts on the frontier with Hungary, Komarno and Mevedov.
Czech customs officers at the German border seized 10 kg of
heroin on October 2 from a car being driven by a Slovak. The part
played by Slovakia was confirmed by interior minister Gustav
Krajci at an international conference on drugs held in Bratislava
on October 2 and 3, 1995. Krajci emphasized that his country was
not only a transit area but also a heroin stocking point. Slovak
nationals, like those of other Central European countries, are
used as drug runners by Turkish and Albanian criminal
organizations; 117 of them are being held in various foreign
countries for trying to smuggle heroin into Western Europe.
Latin American cocaine smugglers either arrive at Prague's
airport or drive from Poland directly into Germany. According to
the police, there also exists a southwestern route for hard drugs
which begins in the territory of the former Soviet Union. In the
Czech Republic, gangs from the former USSR were hitherto
specializing in other forms of crime: prostitution, extortion,
murder, etc. Moreover, Ukrainian and Russian gangs are waging a
merciless war against each other to define their respective
territories within Prague. The stability of the Czech kroner and
the privatization process attract criminal groups from eastern
and Western Europe.
An illustration of this situation was provided when the
privatization of the Rostoky ephedrine plant was halted. The
factory is the biggest worldwide supplier of this amphetamines
precursor chemical. It hit the headlines when it delivered 50
metric tons of ephedrine to Mexico, in transit to the U.S.
illegal market. According to Czech police, firms suspected of
links with drug gangs were involved. The name of the Mendel
company in Brno was cited in the press. This firm is very active
in arms exports to Latin America, mainly Ecuador and Colombia.
Copyright (c) OGD 1997
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic
screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters
and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright
frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects
spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and
nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
