Sicily drugs find gives police new insight into smuggling

A drugs find in Sicily last June in which two Maltese were allegedly involved has given the Malta police a fresh insight into how drug dealers work, police sources said.

Up to 20 people involved in the case are shortly expected to be charged in the Maltese courts. The arraignment is expected to take place by next week.

The two men arrested by the Italian police, a 27-year old from Sta Venera, and a 33-year old from Valletta, are still in custody in Sicily. They were arrested in a dramatic operation in Gelso Bianco, near Catania, when they went to retrieve the drugs buried near a highway close to the airport.

Four kilograms of cocaine and one kilo of marijuana, estimated to have a street value of over Lm300,000, were found hidden by the roadside by the police, who replaced the drug with packaged flour and kept vigil on the area until the two men came to collect the drug.

Although the arrests were made in early June, the drugs had been in Sicily since mid-April.

Police sources said intensive investigations had provided the police with fresh information about tactics being used. Several people are involved at different stages of the operation. Some were commissioned to buy drugs in Amsterdam and hand it over to others.

The people who bought the drugs returned to Malta and the drugs were transported overland to Sicily where they were handed to other people to bring it to Malta.

In this case, one of those who allegedly bought the drug went over to Sicily to bring the drugs home, the sources said.

The drug smugglers chose one of two options to bring the drug to Malta. They would either take their car to Sicily and hide the drug in a modified compartment or people were sent by boat from Malta to a port in Sicily where they would be given the drug to bring home.

The Malta police are working hand in hand with the Italian police and Maltese officers have gone to Sicily on several occasions to help their Italian counterparts.

The police were convinced that they would have found the drug as soon as it entered Malta, but the drug was replaced in its hiding place in Sicily just to ensure that if something went wrong and the smugglers slipped the net, the police would not have lost the drug.

The sources said that among those to be arraigned are three men who are currently serving time in prison for serious drug related charges, as well as several women.

Assistant Commissioner Michael Cassar and Inspectors Neil Harrison and Norbert Ciappara were leading the investigations.