The police’s huge drug crackdown: “Billions on the street”

Six people are in custody on suspicion of, among other things, serious drug offenses after Thursday’s police crackdown in Norvik harbor in Nynäshamn.

According to information to SVT, the seizure consisted of 1.4 tons, and a rapid test has yielded cocaine.

The drugs and the gangs

The large quantity indicates that the narcotics may have been on their way to more markets than the Swedish one and that Sweden has become a transit country.

– I would not be surprised if it was intended for both the Nordic market and as a gateway to Europe – where you choose countries in the north that are not as well known for drug smuggling routes like this, says Ted Esplund at the National Police Operations Department (NOA).

Ted Esplund is deputy commander of the special national event Frigg, which aims to support the work against the criminal networks in the Stockholm region, and is not surprised by the crackdown.

– We have seen that all types of logistics routes are used, so it was probably rather a matter of time that it appeared here.

“Billions on the street”

According to Esplund, the crackdown corresponds to billions of kroner in street value. Such a large amount of lost narcotics can lead to an escalation of violence within the criminal sphere.

– It is a matter of billions of dollars when you pay it out on the street, and over the years we have taken very large seizures and at the same time seen violence. We have a big focus on the problem of violence in Sweden, so now we are looking at whether this could lead to new acts of violence here, he says.

Two of the detained persons are under 18 years of age, the others are in their 20s. According to Ted Asplund, this may indicate that criminally inexperienced executors were used.

– We don’t know at all what role the individuals have had, but if you use run boys who are not hardened criminals, they are often executors of a mission who may not even know what to get, says Ted Esplund.