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Welsh Customs to retreat
Page 8
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• The Public and Commercial Services Union has hit out at plans by Customs 86 Excise to remove front-line officers from the main Welsh ports, arguing that this will open the door to tobacco and drug smugglers.
The proposals suggest the removal of anti-smuggling officers from Swansea, Pembroke and Chester (Chester covers north-east Wales) and replacing them with English-based mobile teams.
As a result, the only permanent Customs presence wit be in Cardiff and Holyhead—a 50% reduction in front-line antismuggling staff in Wales.
Peter Harris, national officer for PCS Wales, says: "The resuft of these plans will be the abandonment of any meaningful controls at entry points to Wales leaving many ports in Wales unprotected on a daily basis.'
• Customs officers have made a number of successful swoops on trucks in the past week, thwarting attempts to smuggle cigarettes and drugs into the country. Officers found five million cigarettes under a load of frozen broccoli at Poole Ferryport. The cartons were hidden on a Spanish-registered refrigerated vehicle.
The second incident involved the arrest of two men when 1.26 million cigarettes were found in a truck on the A19 near Northallerton.
Also, drugs worth .£2m were found at Harwich. As CM went to press, driver Brian Moody had been charged and remanded in custody.