Pubdate: Sun, 07 Apr 2002 Source: Sunday Herald, The (UK) Copyright: 2002 Sunday Herald Contact: http://www.sundayherald.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/873 Author: Neil Mackay SCOTS CUSTOMS BUNGLE GIFTS IRA ECSTASY-MAKING MACHINERY SCOTTISH customs chiefs botched a crucial terrorist drugs operation and allowed the Provisional IRA to buy an ecstasy pill-making machine, according to a former intelligence agent. The claims are made by Kevin Fulton, a former British soldier who worked undercover within the IRA. Now turned whistleblower, Fulton claims the 'sting', in 1995, was bungled from the start and resulted in the machine, which can produce over 7000 ecstasy tablets an hour, being smuggled through Scotland to Ireland. Fulton was undercover in the IRA and being handled by a number of agencies, including Special Branch and MI5, at the time. He said he and another IRA man bought the machine in Blackpool for UKP5000. He said the customs side of the sting was being handled by senior customs intelligence officers -- in particular a former RUC Special Branch officer working in Scotland for customs. 'He was supposed to be collating all the information I was sending to customs in Glasgow and preparing the ground for the seizure of the machine and the arrests of the IRA men involved. It would have been a huge coup for the British government if they had been able to finger key IRA men as being involved in the drugs trade at that time,' he said. He described his 'disgust' when, after contacting his handlers while at Stranraer, he and the other man were able to deliver the machine to an IRA safe house in South Armagh, despite them being shadowed. He said it ended up in Dublin in the hands of 'a very senior IRA figure still wanted in Britain for terrorist offences'. 'Let's be very clear about what was happening here: customs either failed to act or cocked up and allowed a terrorist organisation to get their hands on a machine which the IRA could use to make thousands upon thousands of ecstasy pills. The results of that are fairly obvious. Firstly, the IRA made -- and are still making -- untold sums of money out of the drugs trade, and secondly the IRA are able to sell drugs, which we all know can kill kids. Doesn't this imply that the British state is acquiescing in the drugs trade? It was one of the easiest busts they could have made. 'This whole job was being run by customs in Scotland and they have to bear the responsibility for putting a money-spinning machine that pumps out tons of ecstasy into the hands of the Provos.' Inquiries with customs in Paisley, London and Belfast ended with Belfast saying the officer, whose identity is known to the Sunday Herald, was currently on a 'government mission attached to a British embassy in eastern Europe and may be working for another government agency, perhaps the Foreign Office'. A spokesman for HM Customs and Excise said he 'could not confirm or deny Fulton's claims' as to do so would put in jeopardy the existence of agents and damage security. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth