Dark web blamed for tripling of cannabis seizures in 2017
CANNABIS seizures have tripled over the last year, with illegal importations from the dark web being blamed.
But the quantity being seized has halved.
There were 174 drug seizures last year, of which 124 were for the class B drugs cannabis resin or herbal cannabis. This was a steep rise from 39 seizures in 2016.
However, the quantity being captured has dropped markedly.
With cannabis resin, 33kg was seized in 2016, compared with 18kg last year, but the number of seizures rose from 34 in 2016 to 56.
Many of the seizures were made as the drugs were brought in by post. Up to six tonnes of airmail comes into the island each day, with Customs officers using X-rays and detection dogs to try to find suspicious packages.
‘At the beginning of 2017 there was an increase in the amount of postal seizures due to the dark web phenomenon, which made the ordering of controlled drugs viable,’ the 2017 Law Enforcement report stated.
‘Due to the activities of Law Enforcement, a number of people were convicted for the importation of commercial quantities of controlled drugs, and this trend has now reduced.
‘It is noted that there is a rise in the number of seizures of herbal cannabis and cannabis resin. This is directly attributable to the identification of significant numbers of dark web importations of small amounts of these commodities.’
The dark web describes a collection of websites which exist on an encrypted network and do not appear on regular searches by search engines. They are often used for criminal activity.
The total street value of drugs seized dropped from £928,943 in 2016 to £611,450.
The number of class A and class C seizures has remained fairly stable.
However, the amount of MDMA, also known as Ecstasy, coming into the island has gone up. While there were just nine seizures last year, 4,119 units were recovered last year – nearly double what was recovered in 2016.
