The Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency (SCDEA) has published its annual report, describing 2008-2009 as a year of success.
The report details how the organisation has been working to disrupt the supply of drugs and organised crime in Scotland, and its wider work to raise awareness of the harms associated with drugs.
During the course of the year, the organisation was responsible for seizing over 1,000kg of class A drugs, with an estimated street value of £43.5million, 226% over their target for the period.
They also removed 112kg of class B drugs from the streets, as well as over 750kg of class C drugs, worth over £3.5million.
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116 sixteen criminals were arrested, 50 of whom were involved in serious organised crime, and they identified and recovered £13million worth of criminal assets under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
Writing in the report's foreward, Deputy Chief Constable Gordon Meldrum, the director general of the SCDEA, said: "For some time now we have been working to broaden the base of our approach to tackling the drugs problem— whether it is in the partnerships that exist within communities, schools and health services to reduce the demand for drugs, or in the new alliances that we need to forge within the UK, Europe and beyond to disrupt supply.
"Scotland may be a small country on the northwest edge of Europe. But the drugs that end up in our backstreets have made it here from routes that straddle the continents—from Afghanistan in the case of heroin and South America in the case of cocaine. Those commodities bring with them a trail of economic, social and political destruction — a continuum of harm — that scars our planet and its people."
The SCDEA has been not only been at the forefront of the fight against drugs, but has also been working against those involved in e-crime, such as those circulating child pornography and gathering intelligence on those grooming youngsters on social network sites, and in tackling money laundering and fraud.
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