Controlled Delivery Busts Foreign Group Smuggling 230 kg of Meth in Waste Materials
Case Files of Narcotics G-men (5)
In December 2012, after my retirement, an elite team led by Mr. Harumi Seto, Director of the Narcotics Control Department of the Kanto Shinetsu Health and Welfare Bureau, discovered and seized a large quantity of methamphetamine, 108 kg, hidden in a road roller from Vietnam. The case began with a tip from the Australian Federal Police, and the road roller was subsequently checked using a large X-ray machine at customs, and the methamphetamine was replaced with glacial sugar in a clean controlled delivery (CCD) search, which eventually led to the arrest of five people from the U.S., Canada, and even Vietnam who showed up to pick up the methamphetamine. Five Vietnamese nationals were arrested.
Mr. Seto is the author of the book “Matri,” published in Reiwa 2020. He is 10 years my junior and was assigned as an intelligence officer in the Kinki District Narcotics Control Office, to which I belonged. Unlike me, he has an outstanding investigative sense and has used his innate intelligence-gathering abilities to uncover numerous drug crimes, making him one or two of the best agents in the Drug Enforcement Division. During my working years, no one could match him.
The shotgun method, where one person is intentionally used as bait
The third method of smuggling is portable importation. This is another method of drug importation that is still used today. This method includes, for example, cases in which approximately 9 kg of marijuana resin and 11,000 MDMA tablets were hidden in double-bottomed suitcases, and 2.9 kg of methamphetamine was smuggled in from Mexico in six shampoo bottles. In another case, a total of 15 kg of methamphetamine and 4 kg of cocaine were hidden in the bottom of a suitcase belonging to four passengers on the same flight.
This method of smuggling illicit drugs by distributing them at the same time is a new technique known as the shotgun method. The method involves using a number of foreign tourists on a budget group tour as couriers to get through the inspection net, or one of them intentionally makes it so that he or she will be detected by the customs officials, and while his or her attention is focused on that person, the remaining members quickly clear customs.
Behind the scenes, X-ray machines, drug-sniffing dogs, and even illicit drug detection equipment have been used to great effect. This illicit drug and explosive detection equipment (TDS) did not exist when I was on active duty. The main feature of this equipment is that it can detect the cargo to be inspected in a short time without destroying it. The surfaces of commercial cargo, passengers’ personal effects, and international mail were wiped with a non-woven cloth, and the drug particles on the surface were ionized and analyzed by mass spectrometry, enabling the detection of concealed illicit drugs.
A specific example of its use can be seen when an attempted smuggler packs drugs into a double-bottomed suitcase, touching its exterior or opening and closing its zipper with hands that have trace amounts of drugs on them. In doing so, there is a possibility that a miniscule amount of powder, which is invisible to the eye, may adhere to the bag. This was a revolutionary device that used this point to reveal the concealment of illicit drugs.
[Part Two] “Even a Female Exchange Student Enchanted by the Allure of Marijuana. The Cunning Tactics of Drug Smugglers Trying to Cross Borders by Any Means”
