Plea for 'mules' task force

A senior Scotland Yard detective has called for a task force of police, customs and immigration officials to combat the multi-million cocaine trade flowing into London on flights from Jamaica.

A day after it was revealed that 24 people, including seven women, had swallowed cocaine on one flight into Heathrow, the detective claimed that drug mules were bringing at least £2 million worth of the drug into London airports each week.

Detective Superintendent Barry Phillips says the drugs mules are fuelling London's booming crack cocaine market and its links to the capital's rising rate of gun crime.

In the last 12 months alone eight people have died from swallowing cocaine when the packages inside them burst, two of them dying in mid air on flights to the UK from Jamaica.

In addition police say they are investigating two murders in London and a string of kidnaps, directly linked to the drug courier trade. Mr Phillips, a senior officer on the Operation Trident team investigating crack-related gun crime in London, said : "The crack market on the streets of London and other cities is fuelled by the drug couriers coming into Britain on the Air Jamaica flights into Heathrow and British Airways flights into Gatwick.

"The problem of drugs being brought into the country by people having swallowed them is so vast that no one agency can tackle the problem alone.

"Customs cannot do it because of their limited resources. It needs a multiagency approach from customs, police and immigration." His comments came after 25 people were arrested on suspicion of swallowing cocaine on an Air Jamaica flight into Heathrow on Monday. In a joint operation Customs and police charged 24 people with swallowing and importing cocaine and one man with importing cannabis.

The street value of the drugs carried on the Monday flight was estimated at around £1.5 million and Mr Phillips said the average weekly estimate of £2 million worth of drugs coming in was a conservative one. He added: "The trade emanates from Jamaica and it is a growing industry out there. Resources to tackle this are so scarce that a vast number are getting through. I personally think that a high proportion of crack cocaine on the streets of London comes from these flights.

"My suggestion is for a properly funded task force to carry out a sustained campaign against this activity. Only that way can we make a sustained difference."

He added: "The judiciary will say that they are coming down hard on drug smugglers, but the people doing this are doing it because of the poverty in Jamaica ... and they are blind to the risks they run."

All those arrested on Monday came from the Kingston, Spanish Town and Montego Bay. They were aged from 17 to 47. One women was found to have swallowed 94 packages of cocaine. The trade is believed to be controlled by Yardie gangsters based in Jamaica.

Olga Heaven of the charity Hibiscus, which represents women prisoners in British jails, said there were around 700 foreign women in UK jails convicted of smuggling drugs.