The UK government has according to recent data, seized a record number of drugs (over 119 metric tonnes of illegal drugs with a street value of about 3 billion pounds ($3.66 billion) in the year to March 2024, – the most since record keeping began.
From the official data covering England and Wales, it was found that the volume of drugs confiscated by police and border officials increased by 52% in the 12 months ending in March 2024, including over 28 tonnes of cocaine and 74 tonnes of herbal cannabis.
It was also revealed that the total volume of drugs was the most since records began in 1973 (note that there were a total of 217,644 drug seizures made over the period, compared to 191,623 in 2022/23).
Meanwhile, the Home Office minister, Seema Malhotra, whose brief includes Border Force operations, had in a statement, said;
“These statistics send a clear message to organised criminal gangs that they will be caught and face the full force of the law if they try to smuggle drugs into our country.”
In February 2024, the National Crime Agency announced it had conducted the biggest ever seizure of Class A drugs in the United Kingdom, stopping 5.7 tonnes of cocaine at a port in southern England.
