To avoid customs checks at, for example, the Öresund Bridge or at the ferry traffic between Helsingborg and Helsingör, drug smugglers are increasingly choosing alternative routes.
- We have seen tendencies to increased drug smuggling via merchant shipping at sea, mainly through certain large seizures in Denmark, Sweden and Europe, says Patrik Lindén, acting station manager for the Coast Guard in Malmö.
Joint operation
This week, SVT Nyheter Helsingborg got to follow the Coast Guard out on a trip in the strait between Helsingborg and Helsingör.
- Drug smuggling here across the Sound is interesting precisely given the proximity to Denmark.
The transport by leisure boat is very short and it takes between 10 and 20 minutes to get over from Denmark to Sweden, says Patrik Lindén.
In a joint operation, called the porpoise, the Coast Guard and the Swedish Customs have now increased their surveillance in marinas and at sea.
- Our intelligence works together where they map and try to find the ships that are interesting so we can carry out targeted checks against them, says Patrik Lindén.
Mistakes have revealed criminals
Among other things, the authorities cooperated when about 70 kilos of cocaine floated ashore in Nyhamnsläge last year - after a failed attempt to bring in the drugs with a smaller motorboat.
The plan was to pick up the cocaine at a buoy out in the strait, but the drugs had come loose.
There, two men were sentenced to several years in prison for attempted extremely serious drug offenses.
- The things we have encountered so far have been some mistakes by the criminals and we are scratching the top of an iceberg.
We do not really know what is under the water surface and therefore we started this project, so we can map it better, says Patrik Lindén.