The total street value of drugs seized by the police last year amounted to more than €53 million, with the vast value found in cocaine, police figures show.
The combined street value of cocaine, crack cocaine, cannabis varieties, heroin, ketamine and ecstasy, was almost double the €28.7 million seized in 2017.
However, the figure is almost 86 per cent less than the total street value of drugs seized during 2018.
That year saw the total sum seized reaching €351 million, mainly from the seizure of cannabis resin amounting to over €329 million.
This was considerably higher than the 591 kilogrammes and their €12 million street value seized in 2017.
The findings are from accumulated yearly data obtained from the police, outlining the number of drug seizures and arrests by the authorities in the period between 2016 and 2019.
The figures show that the total amount of cocaine seized in 2017, was well over 10 times the amount seized in 2016, from 21 kilogrammes to 323 kilogrammes. This equated to a street value of over €12 million compared to the €1.2 million in the previous year.
Volumes reflect increased number of potential clients
The total amount of cocaine seized in 2018 dropped by almost half while its street value remained at around €12 million. By 2019, this would almost quadruple from 187.5 kilogrammes seized in 2018 to 747.3 kilos last year.
The total street value for cocaine seized in 2019 rose to almost €45 million. The police data also shows that the number of people arrested for drug possession dropped by almost half in the past four years.
Arrests for drugs possession fell from 627 in 2016 to 337 in 2019, while the interim years of 2017 and 2018 saw 628 and 498 people arrested, respectively.
Arrests for trafficking in the same period, also dropped by about 20 per cent but the decrease was less gradual.
Trafficking arrests fell from 148 in 2016 to 119 in 2019.
Head of the Criminology Department at the University of Malta, Saviour Formosa, said he was not surprised by volumes of drugs seized.
“The volumes reflect the increased number of potential clients, reflective of a year-on-year increase in the number of tourists and permanent residents, amounting to a quarter of a million per year in the case of the former and the 20-25 per cent increase in residents,” Formosa said.
He added that the figures could have been boosted through more effective means to monitor the arrival of drugs coming into the freeport, bound for other destinations and the capture of those in possession and trafficking them.