Pubdate: Sun, 26 Jul 1998 Source: Scotland On Sunday Contact: Ron McKay CALL FOR INQUIRY INTO MISSING HEROIN Paisley MP demands answers from customs over failed 'sting' after 54th death by overdose The anti-drugs campaigner MP Irene Adams is to demand a government inquiry into whether a failed customs 'sting' is responsible for a massive increase in drug-related deaths in the west of Scotland. On Friday David McCracken, 26, died in a house in Ferguslie Park Avenue in Adams' Paisley North constituency, the 54th person to die of a heroin overdose. Police claim that a batch of super strength heroin may be responsible for the spiralling increase in drug deaths. Two kilos of heroin went missing in a bungled operation aimed at netting major drug dealers in Scotland and England and is believed to have been circulating in Glasgow. The total of drug deaths in Strathclyde so far this year is already greater than the whole of last year and is on course to top 1995's record of 102. Now Adams is demanding to know why customs officers were involved in importing massive amounts of heroin from Pakistan to entrap dealers and whether the missing heroin is responsible for the upsurge in deaths. She said: "If 54 people had died of anything else it would be called an epidemic and something would be done about it. Because it's drugs they're expendable. I will be demanding of the minister responsible, Henry McLeish, a full investigation into what's gone wrong and why these young people are dying." In a case at Glasgow's High Court in April Shaukat Ali was sentenced to five years for heroin trafficking. Police recovered Scotland's largest-ever heroin haul, 18.5 kilos. The drugs were smuggled into the country by customs agents on a scheduled flight from Pakistan and in the course of the 'sting', which involved several alleged dealers in Scotland and the north of England, two kilograms disappeared. Donald Findlay, defence QC, said: "It would appear that the informant is making a bit on the side." Customs deny that they supply drugs to suspects to help gain convictions, but a spokesman conceded that they do occasionally 'facilitate' shipments in operations known as 'controlled deliveries'. When informants overseas contact drugs liaison officers attached to British embassies about planned shipments of drugs, free passage can be arranged in order to trap dealers here. An anonymous supergrass, dubbed Tariq by the authorities, was approached last year to smuggle consignments from Pakistan, the world's most important location for heroin trafficking. He contacted drugs officers and two deliveries of heroin were then made to him in Pakistan, 20 kilos and 17.5 kilos. Then the drugs, along with Tariq and an undercover customs agent, travelled from Islamabad through Manchester to Glasgow. One package went to Leeds, the other batch was held in a warehouse in Glasgow watched by a hidden video camera. Shaukat Ali was then allowed to take two kilos of the batch as samples in order to bait a trap by tempting drug barons. A middleman in Leeds was also allowed to tale a similar amount. All of the heroin went missing. Customs officials are unable to say what happened to the drugs. No one has been arrested in connection with the disappearance. However, another man involved in the 'controlled delivery' through the same network claims that British drugs liaison officers forced him to entrap potential dealers. Hussain Shah says that lie was promised immunity from a smuggling charge involving three kilos of heroin if he would take part in the operation. He claims that he had been set up by customs on the original charge and that they then reneged on his agreement. Shah says that he initiated several deals in Pakistan but when he returned to Britain he was arrested and convicted. Shah, convinced that he has been double-crossed, refused to give evidence in the prosecutions of five men and as a result two cases involving 55 kilos of heroin with a street value of UKP5.5m collapsed. Shah's lawyer, Mohammed Rafique, argues that people are being set up in deals which would never have taken place without the encouragement of Customs and Excise. Senior customs sources say that investigations of these cases have shown no impropriety. - --- Checked-by: "Rolf Ernst"