Four men - caught by police during an undercover operation transferring £2 million worth of cannabis in an underground garage – have been caged for plotting to supply the drug.Surveillance officers from the Metropolitan Police’s Serious and Organised Crime Command watched the handover in Kilburn Park Road, Kilburn, on May 7, last year and seized 600 kg. of cannabis stuffed into 61 boxes.
The four are: Shopkeeper Hamid Charkaoui, 31, of Colville Terrace, Notting Hill, (pic. l.) Delivery driver Fouad Raihani, 34, of Galsworth Court, Bollo Bridge Road, Acton, (pic. 2nd l.) Jobless Paul Mottley, 26, of Salutation Street, Manchester, (pic. 3rd l.) and jobless Dawood Ahmad, 25, of Park Mews, Park Drive, Manchester, (pic. 4th l.). Charkaoui, sentenced to seven-and-a-half years and Raihani, sentenced to five years, were watched unloading the boxes from their van for collection by Mottley, who received five years and Ahmad, sentenced to three-and-a-half years.Officers moved in as the Londoners loaded up the Manchester duo’s van and arrested all four men, seizing the cannabis (pic. r.) stored in heat-sealed clear plastic bags.Police searched six address, including Charkaoui’s uncle’s property in Ebbsfleet Road, Cricklewood, where they found 6 kg of amphetamine, 29 cellophane wrapped packages of cannabis and a money counting machine.The other searches uncovered £11,000 cash, a heat-sealing machine, a roll of heat-seal plastic and 19 rounds of ammunition. On May 19 mini-cab driver El-Hosain Charkaoui, 49, was arrested on his return from Spain and initially denied knowing anything about the drugs at his home in Ebbsfleet Road, but received eighteen months after admitting his role in the plot.
Detective Inspector Marion Ryan of the Serious and Organised Crime Command said: "This was a significant haul of cannabis that we have successfully removed from circulation. “Today's sentencing is testament to how seriously the criminal justice system takes this class B drug."
A team of Andaulcian scientists, led by Joaquín Lucena at the Legal Medicine Institute in Sevilla, has concluded after studying 2,477 autopsies that 3% of such deaths are caused by cocaine use. The drug can lead to heart attacks and also premature coronary atherosclerosis. Their research showed that of the 668 cases of cardiovascular sudden death, 21 cases showed cocaine use.
El Mundo reports that 7% of the national population uses the drug, most of the users are aged 15 to 34, and experts say users continue to think the drug is harmless.
An article on the subject has been printed in the European Heart Journal which also quotes the research of two top scientists from the University of Texas in the field. It says that cocaine abuse is an increasing and under estimated European public health problem.
prisoner Renae Lawrence has made a fresh confession about her role in heroin smuggling in an effort to prevent the execution of Scott Rush, the youngest of the nine Australians arrested in Bali in 2005.Lawrence's testimony at Rush's final appeal that she made multiple courier runs to Bali will help lawyers argue that his death sentence is unjust under Indonesian law, because lighter sentences were given to other members of the group (pictured).Although Lawrence had made 2 drug runs to Bali before her arrest in 2005, she received a 20-year sentence, the least severe punishment imposed on any of the 9 Australians.19-year-old Rush was making his 1st overseas trip when 3.4 kilograms of heroin was found strapped to his body at Denpasar airport in April 2005.He had no knowledge of the extent of the drug syndicate that recruited him and, after initial denials, confessed his guilt and pleaded for mercy.His death sentence has attracted controversy because Australian Federal Police reneged on a promise to his father, Lee Rush, to stop the then teenager travelling to Bali. Instead, the police steered him into a trap knowing he could face execution under Indonesia's drug laws.Rush and the group's convicted ringleaders, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, are the only members of the group who have been sentenced to death and are awaiting final appeals while on death row in Bali's Kerobokan jail.The other 6, including Lawrence, are serving jail terms.Lawrence told Indonesian police after her arrest in 2005 that she travelled to Bali in October the previous year with Chan and that Sukumaran had strapped the pair with heroin, which they took back to Australia.She also told police of a trip to Bali in December 2004 that was aborted because of difficulty obtaining money to buy the drugs.But during her trial, Lawrence withdrew her police statements and was not questioned at length about them.The Age has learned Lawrence has given a new statement to Rush's lawyers and is prepared to testify if asked to do so by a panel of Supreme Court judges set to consider Rush's appeal, which could begin in early AprilLawrence's drug run in October 2004 and attempted run three months later were confirmed during the trials of three of the syndicate's other drug ''mules'' in Brisbane in December 2008.
Rush was initially sentenced to life imprisonment - but in a shock judgment, the sentence was increased to death on appeal in the Supreme Court in 2006.
In the same court, fellow couriers Martin Stephens and Michael Czugaj had life sentences upheld.
The differing appeal sentences were imposed on the basis of the same evidence heard by different judges.
Prosecutors had never asked for the death sentence for Rush. Under Indonesian law there is no automatic requirement for findings in different courts to match, nor for the ruling of a superior court to be followed automatically by a lower court.
But Rush's lawyers can point to sentencing inconsistencies in a motion for reconsideration at the appeal.
They are expected to ask the appeal judges to look at all the ''Bali 9'' cases and argue that for the sentences to be uniform, Rush should not be executed.
In 2008, the retiring head of Indonesia's Supreme Court, Bagir Manan, was quoted as saying he expected the apparent injustice of Rush's sentence to be considered at the final appeal.
If final appeals by Rush, Chan and Sukumaran fail, their last option is to seek clemency from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who has shown little mercy to those convicted of narcotics crimes since he took office in 2004.
Rush's lawyers are expected to file his appeal before those of Chan and Sukumaran.
Rush says he was living a teenager's ''party life'' in Brisbane with Czugaj, his schoolmate, when they were offered all-expenses-paid trips to Bali in 2005.
During their eight-day stay in Bali, Chan and Sukumaran demanded they carry packages back to Australia, for which they would be paid $5000 each. They were told their families would be killed if they did not follow
instructions. After they were detained at Denpasar airport, they were escorted to a room where they saw 2 other distressed Australians they had never seen before who had also been caught trying to carry drugs to Sydney. They turned out to be Martin Stephens and the woman whose testimony might now save Rush's life, Renae Lawrence.
Lawrence, then 29, from Newcastle, feared she faced life in jail as she pleaded for mercy at her trial in 2006. Her lawyers were surprised and relieved when she was sentenced to 20 years.
Following controversy over the AFP's role in Rush's arrest, the Rudd Government last month issued guidelines stipulating that police consider a suspect's age, nationality and whether capital punishment is likely when co-operating with foreign countries.
The organisers and financiers of the heroin to be smuggled by the Bali 9 have never been arrested.
It has never been explained how a Thai woman named Cherry Likit Bannakorn twice managed to remain unnoticed as she delivered the heroin to Chan in the middle of a police surveillance operation instigated by the AFP.
Federal MPs on both sides are pushing to pass laws early this year to entrench Australia's opposition to the death penalty.
Mennilli said police were "sick of this booze-till-you-drop culture".
"What is really distressing is the number of underage people congregating in public, in parks and the like, with the sole purpose of drinking themselves into a stupor," he said.In the northeastern state of Queensland, more than 900 people were arrested or issued with warnings by police as thousands of officers took to the streets around the country to enforce the crackdown during the Christmas party season.
In Western Australia about 180 people were arrested, while 123 were arrested in South Australia, 200 detained for drunkenness in the southern state of Victoria and 45 picked up in the national capital Canberra.According to government figures, drink-related injuries kill four Australians under the age of 25 and 70 are hospitalised due to alcohol-linked assaults each week.But despite Australia's booze-addled reputation, other nations including Ireland, Britain and Germany drink more litres per capita, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
August of this year the Mexican government legalized possession of marijuana, cocaine and heroin. The United States has long held that a great percentage of illegal drugs brought into this country are manufactured and smuggled into the United States across our borders. In the United States, possession of any of these drugs is illegal and the penalty can be imprisonment. The Mexican government says that they are losing their battle with the drug cartels in part because of the illegal firearms crossing the border from the United States into Mexico.
The Mexican Government defends their legalization of drugs. "This is not legalization; this is regulating the issue and giving citizens greater legal certainty," said Bernardo Espino del Castillo of the attorney generals office.
Legal certainty is accurate. The citizens and visitors of Mexico are now certain that they will not be arrested for possession of these drugs. They have immunity.
In addition this new law gives the Mexican citizens and visitors from the United States the opportunity to legally try out these drugs and add to the Drug Cartels bank of addicted users. Its now a reality that the desperate migration of Mexicans into the United States might, in part, be an attempt to flee their county that is clearly in the control of the Mexican Drug Cartels.Should we as Americans turn away these refugees (who are infiltrated with drug smugglers) ? Or should we, if we have a choice, wage war in Mexico rather than Afghanistan. To see a real story of the war on drugs in Mexico click here: courtesy of Boston.com
CHEMICAL produced in Wales is being used by law enforcement agencies throughout the world to identify smuggled stashes of cocaine.Three friends who run Celtic Chemicals, which was founded by their fathers in 1979, sell their £1,000-a-kilo cobalt-based material for use in detection kits which turn substances containing cocaine bright blue.Customers now include NIK Public Safety, one of the world’s biggest suppliers of drug detection technology.The kits are used by British police forces and US border patrols.Bridgend-based Celtic Chemicals also supply a nitrate-based solution which has become increasingly sought-after as a result of its use in the manufacture of SatNav devices and mobile phones.The company also works with Alzheim, a Powys-based outfit which uses daffodil extracts to delay the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease.Celtic Chemicals has doubled its turnover in the past five years as demand for its specialist products rises.It has just announced a £20,000 investment in equipment which will allow staff to analyse the purity of chemicals with new accuracy.The company was founded by Ian Woolcock, Ray Houlton and Murray Donald, and is now run by their sons Rhys, Simon and Ben.Mr Woolcock said that being part of a multi-family company was “an interesting situation” but added: “I suppose the most unusual thing is we all still get on.”
Many hi-tech companies are developed to be sold to larger corporations, but this is not an immediate goal for the team.Mr Woolcock said: “We are in charge of our own destiny to a degree. I think the overriding feeling is it’s a positive place to be.”But he added: “It depends how big the cheque is.”
The new equipment, he said, would allow the company to manufacture greater volumes in a shorter time.He added: “This will also safeguard nine permanent jobs.” Celtic Chemicals was launched to manufacture and process organic metallic salts, widely used in a range of industries such as electronics, food, pharmaceuticals and metal finishing.
The company moved to Kenfig Industrial Estate at Bridgend three years ago when it was restructured with help from the former Welsh Development Agency. The recent £20,000 funding comes from the Assembly Government.Mr Woolcock was confident the company could continue to compete with rivals in China and the Far East.A key advantage, he said, was the speed at which it is able to meet orders. It is often able to develop products within one to two weeks.Shipping costs also allow Celtic Chemicals to compete with low-cost economies, he argued, saying: “If you’re in the UK, you can’t buy 100 kilos of a product from China. The freight costs would outweigh any cost advantage.”The company continues to look for new potential projects and collaborations on its doorstep.“We try and keep things within Wales if we can,” he said. “We’ve always got lots of irons in lots of fires.”Ieuan Wyn Jones, Minister for the Economy and Transport, said Celtic Chemicals was an example of the many small but highly innovative companies in Wales that had a global reach.“It’s great news to hear that products developed by a Welsh SME [small to medium company] are having such an impact on the fight against drug smuggling around the world.“It’s also good to hear that Celtic Chemicals has doubled its turnover and with support from the Assembly Government invested in state-of-the-art equipment that will help boost business prospects further.”The company is able to supply kosher and halal-friendly trace elements for the nutrition sector, as well allergen-free products.Its chemicals are also used in metal-finishing processes and in capacitor production.
The company serves the pharmaceutical and personal care markets by supplying pure sources of minerals.Laboratory supplies such as ammonium and zinc are provided by the kilo, and the team have developed a niche with ceramic colours.Inorganic copper, cobalt and nickel are all provided for the colouring of glazes.
rabbi who was arrested after a five-day binge of cocaine and prostitutes said that he took drugs to alleviate the loneliness he felt after his wife died.
Baruch Chalomish, 55, told a court that he began snorting the drug because he felt lonely after his wife died, insisting: “I wanted to stop feeling depressed, to feel normal.” The Israeli-born father of three, who was once an eminent Jewish academic, has in recent years built a £7 million fortune from astute share dealing and property development. The prosecution at Manchester Crown Court claim that the rabbi was the financier in a commercial cocaine-supply business while his alleged accomplice, Nasir Abbas, 54, a convicted drug dealer, provided the drugs and the customers. They rented a luxury service flat in northern Manchester over the new year holidays where the rabbi admits that he indulged to excess. Police found 101g of cocaine at the flat and his home along with cutting agents and “snap bags” but he insists that he is not a drug dealer. He stepped into the witness box to say that he felt deeply ashamed of his behaviour. He told his defence counsel, Jonathan Goldberg, QC, that he began taking cocaine three years ago when he was introduced to it by an Israeli friend with whom he celebrated the Sabbath. He was introduced in turn to Mr Abbas. Both men are accused of possessing cocaine, which Chalomish admits, and dealing the drug, which he denies. They would go to parties in flats around Manchester and snort cocaine alongside “distinguished” professionals such as doctors, he said. Chalomish frequently broke down and cried when the death of his wife, Freda, who died aged 40 in 1996, was mentioned. When asked why he took the drug, he said: “I probably wanted to forget her death.” Cocaine allowed him to feel so high he no longer had any worries, and not feel lonely any more. “This was very important to me,” he said. The rabbi, who agreed he spent up to £1,000 a week on cocaine, bowed his head and cried as he admitted he paid prostitutes to have sex with him. He said he bought the cocaine from Mr Abbas, who also organised the parties.He insisted that he bought only the purest cocaine from Mr Abbas, who provided “the best in town”. Chalomish said: “If you go to the streets you buy cocaine, they can mix it with dangerous things. And I didn’t want to have this so when I have pure cocaine I know nothing is mixed with it. I know I’m not taking something which can damage my health more than cocaine itself.” The rabbi told the court that by the time he was arrested in an hotel apartment on Shudehill, Manchester, on January 5, he had been on a cocaine and prostitute binge that had lasted up to five days.
He admitted he was “exhausted” as he had been doing “a lot of sniffing”.
The rabbi told the court he was introduced to one prostitute called Emma. He had paid between £400 and £500 to spend two days with her.
Asked why police found so much cocaine in his house in Prestwich, Greater Manchester, Chalomish said: “First of all it is difficult to get pure stuff. Once you get it, you get quite a lot, so I know I have supplies for the next three or six months.” Asked by his counsel how he felt now the court case had been reported in the media, Chalomish replied: “Deeply ashamed. It is probably the biggest punishment I have ever had in my life.” Mr Abbas failed to turn up for the trial, which has gone ahead in his absence. The jury has been told that he telephoned his solicitor on the eve of the trial to claim that the rabbi had made a threatening call and had sent heavies to his house to warn him off.Chalomish denies making any such threats. The trial continues.
Figures released today show the number of women under 35 treated for addiction has gone from 790 to 1,261 since 2005.
For men under 35, the increase is equally stark, up to 5,263 from 3,024 in 2005.
Rosa O'Connor, director of the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse, said there was some good news, with figures showing fewer women were seeking treatment for crack and heroin addiction.
'It is good news that women are turning away from heroin and crack, the most problematic drugs, but we are concerned by the increase in cocaine dependence,' she said.She warned of the dangers for women using cocaine and alcohol together.
The drugs could damage their fertility, cause paranoia and heart problems, she said.
The price of a line of cocaine has plummeted in recent years - along with purity.
Bangkok-based drug-users support group and the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/Aids out of Canada on Thursday accused the Thai police of committing serious ethical violation by setting a pseudo sting operation to nab injection drug users (IDU) while seeking treatment.Nearly half of the 252 IDU surveyed said police has planted drugs on them and claimed that they had to pay bribe to the police to avoid arrest.
"This form of drug planting was found to be associated with numerous health-related harms including syringe sharing and drug-related overdose," said Thai AIDS Treatment Action Group (TTAG) and the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS (Vancouver, Canada), in a statement released Thursday.
royal musician accused of carrying out a string of burglaries was addicted to heroin during her time as Prince Charles’s harpist, she told a court.
Jemima Phillips, who was appointed Charles’s harpist in 2004, told a court in Gloucester Wednesday she started using crack cocaine, and then heroin five years ago.
Phillips, 28, who performed at Charles’s wedding to Camilla Parker Bowles in 2005 and other royal events attended by the Queen, is accused of stealing cash and electrical goods in four raids on private homes carried out along with her boyfriend. In her three years as the Prince’s harpist she played at royal residences, including Balmoral Castle, Clarence House and Highgrove, as well as the House of Commons.Phillips told the court she had endured a string of “disastrous” relationships and started using crack cocaine after having her second abortion.
The court heard that shortly afterwards she started a relationship with a man who introduced her to heroin and violently beat her. Phillips said although she fled from him and returned to her parents’ home in Gloucestershire, her heroin habit “increased”. She met co-defendant William Davies on a street corner in Gloucester in January this year, when he gave her a bag of heroin. Prosecutor Martin Steen said the pair raided four homes between May 22 and May 28 and stole a handbag, TV, guitar, mobile phones, cameras, wallets, bank cards and laptops - which she denies.
Heroin is typically injected or snorted by users though it can be smoked. In spite of the negative consequences in his life, the one who is a heroin addict continues to use the drug. He is not able to choose. The need for heroin becomes a driving force in his life.As with any other drugs, the body builds up a tolerance for heroin. The addict will have to use larger amounts in order to achieve the high. In time, the addict will have to take heroin several times per day trying to avoid the withdrawal symptoms. The repeated use leads to addiction, whether you are using needles or not.The most common experiences a user can have when he becomes dependent on the heroin are cravings in between uses, spending time thinking about the last time they got high and what the next high will be like, focusing on where and when they can get the next dose, sudden financial difficulties and erratic behavior, track marks around injection points.Using heroin it affects the way nerves in the spinal cord communicate pain sensations to the brain. Shortly after the drug is snorted or injected, it creates an intense feeling of pleasure. Heroin works on the pleasure centers in the brain by affecting the level of dopamine that it produces. People who want to quit using heroin do better when they are well motivated to do so.
The motivation may come from the person who is addicted to heroin themselves or because of the involvement of concerned friends or family members. When someone detoxes from heroin, they are going to experience a series of withdrawal symptoms, like diarrhea, insomnia, muscle aches, vomiting, etc.The withdrawal symptoms will start within a few hours after the person stops using heroin, with the peak occurring within 24-72 hours. Symptoms of withdrawal may be present for a week after the last time the addict used the drug. Ideally, this step in heroin treatment is performed under the supervision of a doctor.
Sixteen-year-old model meets penniless future rock star almost eight years her senior and is instantly smitten, they eventually marry, have two children, and live happily ever after.Apart from the last bit, that's the ballad of Mary Forsberg Weiland, who has just written a memoir of her life with Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland -- her soon-to-be ex-husband.An awful lot of drug use together condemned their union, as she vividly relates in "Fall to Pieces," whose title comes from a song by her husband's former band Velvet Revolver. Mental illness (her) and incarceration (both) did not help.But the book is no angry tirade from a woman scorned. Indeed, she says it has the blessing of Scott Weiland, who is working on his own autobiography.For all the death and devastation detailed in its pages, the book is surprisingly funny. Even in the depths of junkie despair, she could see the absurdity of taking a limo -- "the douchemobile" -- to one of the couple's countless rehab stints."It's easier to connect with somebody, I think, if there's humor there," she said in a recent interview. "I don't want anybody to think my life is tragic, or I'm playing victim."
In person, Mary Weiland looks like your typical suburban 34-year-old ex-model and mother of two. There is no indication that her face and arms were once covered in scabs or that she injected heroin wherever she could find a spot.
"I never went so far as my neck," she cautions. "I don't think I could have done that."The book traces her early days in a dysfunctional and impoverished southern California family. She started modeling at 14, quit school at 15, and traveled the world making great money.Her future husband had an $8-an-hour job driving models in his beat-up car to their assignments around Los Angeles. She knew upon their first meeting in 1991 that they would be married. Alas, he was dating a woman who would become his first wife, but he deftly strung both women along for many years.
Their relationship was doomed from the start. Scott Weiland's drug use prevented Stone Temple Pilots from building on the promise of its first two hit albums, and he was often in court and on pundits' death-watch lists.His career gets little space in the book. She says she was careful not to involve herself in band matters, and is not completely sure which of his songs are about her.At any rate, she was too busy getting high to analyze the Billboard charts. She was a hard-core heroin user for "a really horrible year" until he was sentenced to a year in jail in 1999 for violating his probation on various drug charges.
The four drugs where more than 50 percent of the deaths were caused by the drug when the drug was found, were heroin (86.9 percent), methadone (73.4 percent), fentanyl (56.4 percent), and oxycodone (56.1 percent), according the The Florida Department of Law Enforcement report released this morning. The information is for the first six months of the year and provided by Florida medical examiners.During that period there were approximately 88,500 deaths in Florida. Of those, 4,199 individuals were found to have died with one or more of the drugs specified in this report in their bodies.Deaths caused by heroin increased by 20.5 percent over the last half of 2008.
The report also indicates that prescription drugs continued to be found more often than illicit drugs in both lethal and non-lethal levels during the first part of this year. Prescription drugs account for 79 percent of all drug occurrences in this report when alcohol is excluded. According to the report, in Fort Myers 19 people who died had lethal levels of oxycodone; 17 had lethal levels of methadone; 16 had lethal levels of alprazolan; seven had lethal levels of morphine; seven had lethal levels of cocaine; four had lethal levels of heroin; four had lethal levels of hydrocodone; and two had lethal levels of propoxyphene.
Professor David Nutt, who was the chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, sparked outrage earlier this week after he criticised the decision to reclassify cannabis as a Class B drug.It is understood Home Secretary Alan Johnson asked him to consider his position in the wake of the comments, saying he had "no confidence" in him.The charity DrugScope said the development was "extremely serious and concerning".Director of communications, Harry Shapiro, said: "There are few areas of policy as important but at the same time as difficult, complex and emotive as drugs policy. That is why it is vitally important that the Government receives advice that is not only evidence based, objective and robust but that is also public and transparent."However, former Government chief scientific adviser Sir David King said Professor Nutt had "stepped over the line" in criticising a politician.On Friday night, he said that advisers had to maintain the trust of both public and ministers and it was important to do that in a sensitive way."I think that where David has stepped over the line is being openly critical of the politician concerned," he said.
Asya Richardson, through her lawyer, claims she was unaware that the man she knew as a music company impresario used drug money for the down payment on the house just outside Mullica Hill they bought in the summer of 2005.former girlfriend of drug kingpin Alton "Ace Capone" Coles, wants her money-laundering conviction, linked to the couple's purchase of a luxurious home in South Jersey, overturned.
"Asya Richardson was a naive young woman who fell in love with, and was duped by, Alton Coles, a deceptive, manipulative individual . . . who hid his illegal activities from her and used her as part of his legitimate front to the outside world," Richardson's lawyer, Ellen C. Brotman, argued in a post-trial motion heard today by U.S. District Court Judge R. Barclay Surrick.Brotman has asked the judge either to overturn Richardson's conviction or grant her a new trial. Surrick, after an hour-long hearing, said he would take the issue under advisement. Not surprisingly, federal prosecutors argued that the conviction should stand.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Bresnick said that Richardson, 28, knowingly went along with Coles, helping to launder drug proceeds by negotiating the down payment on the $488,000 house with cash transferred from his bank accounts and by lying about her employment and income records."All the evidence established that she knew Coles was a drug dealer and she knew his money was drug money," Bresnick said, describing the house purchase as a "classic money-laundering case."Coles was arrested at the Gloucester County residence, on Dillon's Lane just outside Mullica Hill, in August 2005 as investigators with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tabacco, Firearms and Explosives launched a series of raids that capped a two-year investigation of his $25 million cocaine network. Coles and Richardson had moved into the property two weeks earlier.Richardson was later charged with money-laundering and conspiracy to commit money-laundering. She is the half-sister of former Philadelphia baseketball star Jerome "Pooh" Richardson, who called her hours before the raid to warn that the "feds were coming."Pooh Richardson testified for the prosecution this year at the trial of a former Philadelphia police detective who was convicted of obstruction of justice for leaking him information about the raid.
Aysa Richardson was convicted along with Coles and four others, including a second Coles girlfriend, in March 2008. Coles, 35, was sentenced to life plus 55 years. Richardson has had her sentence delayed pending the outcome of her post-trial motions. She could be sentenced to 78 months. Whatever the outcome, the motions have offered a look at the twisted relationship between Coles and the women he dated while under investigation.Brotman, in papers filed last year, said Coles "used the women in his life as tools of his trade."
Smugglers are loading up mini planes with sacks of marijuana in a bid to evade Moroccan security. Investigations carried out by Moroccan police have exposed dozens of Spaniards believed to be violating their airspace. Some 13 drug planes have already been intercepted this year, while just seven were seized in 2007. Last month, two Spaniards were arrested for undertaking a drug smuggling reconnaissance mission. They were spotted circling over the east of Morocco, in another trademark mini plane.
cocaine trafficking syndicate has been cracked in a series of raids on the Gold Coast, police say.The Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) and Gold Coast police simultaneously executed five search warrants on properties at Carrara, Southport, Burleigh Waters, Surfers Paradise and Molendinar on Thursday morning.Four people were arrested during the raids with charges relating to the trafficking of dangerous drugs, possession of prohibited drugs and possession of firearms laid.
A total of 2.5kg of cocaine was seized during the entire operation, with a street value estimated by the CMC at $750,000.Police also seized $37,650 in cash, steroids, a .357 Magnum firearm and ammunition.The raids signal the closure of a 13-month anti-organised crime operation led by the CMC in partnership with various Queensland and NSW police services.
Royal Dutch Gymnastics Federation handed Yuri van Gelder a one-year suspension for testing positive for cocaine at the Dutch Championships in June, ending his chances to compete at the 2012 Olympics.Van Gelder will be able to return to international competition in the summer of 2010, but International Olympic Committee rules stipulate that athletes who receive any sort of suspension for more than six months are not eligible to compete at the next Olympic Games. …
Gymnastics Examiner – After cocaine suspension, Yuri van Gelder will miss 2012 Olympics
Federal prosecutors say Lambda Iota became a drug house during the 2006 - 2007 school year. Twenty-five-year-old Bent Cardan of California supplied the fraternity president with the cocaine. He'll also be on four years supervised release and pay a $4,000 fine. Cardan's Connecticut supplier is serving a 70-month sentence for drug trafficking. The former fraternity president, 25-year-old Christopher Duncan, is serving two years probation. The Justice Department has moved to seize the frat house.former University of Vermont student will spend six months in jail for supplying drugs to his fraternity's cocaine ring.
Alcohol and cigarettes are more dangerous than illegal drugs such as cannabis, LSD and ecstasy, the government's top drugs advisor said Thursday.Professor David Nutt of Imperial College London called for a new system of classifying drugs to enable the public to better understand the relative harm of legal and illegal substances.
Alcohol would rank as the fifth most harmful drug after heroin, cocaine, barbiturates and methadone, he said in a briefing paper for the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King's College London.Tobacco would come ninth on the list and cannabis, LSD and ecstasy "while harmful, are ranked lower at 11, 14 and 18 respectively". The ranking is based on physical harm, dependence and social harm.
"No one is suggesting that drugs are not harmful. The critical question is one of scale and degree," said Nutt, the chairman of the government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.He added: "We have to accept young people like to experiment -- with drugs and other potentially harmful activities -- and what we should be doing in all of this is to protect them from harm at this stage of their lives.
"We therefore have to provide more accurate and credible information. If you think that scaring kids will stop them using, you are probably wrong."Nutt criticised ministers for their decision to upgrade the classification of cannabis in January from class C -- which includes tranquillisers and some painkillers -- to the higher class B alongside amphetamines.The decision, which increases the penalties to a maximum 14 years in jail for dealing and five years for possession, was against scientific advice and came just five years after cannabis had been downgraded from class B to C.Nutt said such policies "distort" and "devalue" research evidence and lead to mixed messages to the public.While he acknowledged that cannabis was "harmful", he said its use does not lead to major health problems. Users faced a "relatively small risk" of psychotic illness compared to the risks of smokers contracting lung cancer.Nutt caused controversy earlier this year by saying that taking ecstasy was no more dangerous than horseriding, a claim he repeated in his paper.
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The four are: Shopkeeper Hamid Charkaoui, 31, of Colville Terrace, Notting Hill, (pic. l.) Delivery driver Fouad Raihani, 34, of Galsworth Court, Bollo Bridge Road, Acton, (pic. 2nd l.) Jobless Paul Mottley, 26, of Salutation Street, Manchester, (pic. 3rd l.) and jobless Dawood Ahmad, 25, of Park Mews, Park Drive, Manchester, (pic. 4th l.). Charkaoui, sentenced to seven-and-a-half years and Raihani, sentenced to five years, were watched unloading the boxes from their van for collection by Mottley, who received five years and Ahmad, sentenced to three-and-a-half years.Officers moved in as the Londoners loaded up the Manchester duo’s van and arrested all four men, seizing the cannabis (pic. r.) stored in heat-sealed clear plastic bags.Police searched six address, including Charkaoui’s uncle’s property in Ebbsfleet Road, Cricklewood, where they found 6 kg of amphetamine, 29 cellophane wrapped packages of cannabis and a money counting machine.The other searches uncovered £11,000 cash, a heat-sealing machine, a roll of heat-seal plastic and 19 rounds of ammunition. On May 19 mini-cab driver El-Hosain Charkaoui, 49, was arrested on his return from Spain and initially denied knowing anything about the drugs at his home in Ebbsfleet Road, but received eighteen months after admitting his role in the plot. 
