Chief inspector Roy Robinson with Cannabis plants with a potential street value of around £100,000 seized by police in the Newtownbutler area in August
CLOSE TO £1million’s worth of illegal drugs has been seized by police in the past two years here.
And, speaking this week, Enniskillen Police Inspector Roy Robinson indicated that drugs in production in the county could travel as far as the UK and beyond.
In an interview on the subject, Inspector Robinson addressed the selling of ‘legal highs’ here, and how the rural nature of Fermanagh makes it a prime location for those involved in the production of illegal drugs, like cannabis.
Since March 2012, there has been seven major drugs busts by police in the county, ranging from cocaine at £9,000 in street value to cannabis at £350,000.
“There’s not a village or town that hasn’t been affected by the availability of drugs,” said Inspector Robinson.
On ‘cannabis houses’, he said: “We recently had one in Newtownbutler and we’ve had a number in Fermanagh west. We’ve had them in Lisnaskea, we’ve had them in Garvary. These people are using houses out in a rural area, renting them for six months and paying the rent up front.
“Then, they simply bring in their pots and their plants, and wire it up and bypass the electricity. We had a house recently where there was £36,000 worth of electricity used for the growing of the plants.
“Somebody somewhere has to pay for that. And the people who are growing the cannabis aren’t going to pay.”
He went on: “We’ve had drugs from these houses taken across the province and even out of the country. These drugs gangs use quiet rural locations like the backwater almost of Fermanagh to cultivate these drugs in a rural area where nobody sees them and then export them right across the UK.”
Speaking on the availability of drugs in the county, Inspector Robinson said: ‘it’s not hard’.
“There’s a community network out there, and somebody knows somebody that can get it for you. That seems to be the way it works. If people want to get them and they have the money, there are those ready to supply them.”
Legal highs
POLICE IN Fermanagh are detecting the use of ‘legal highs’ in the county.
Chief Inspector Roy Robinson said that while there have been no reports of fatalities as a result of legal highs here in Fermanagh, ‘they are really doing society and young people a lot of harm’.
He described legal highs as being ‘sold as bath salts and also as plant fertiliser for plants’.
“There are no shops that we know of that are selling it, but people can get this through the internet.
“People we have stopped and spoken to have said that that’s how they get it: it’s only two clicks of a mouse away. And you can find it. It’s dreadful that people are prepared to buy that and don’t know what is it in.”
“Police officers have from time to time detained people who are clearly on something, and then discovered as a result of searching them and speaking to them that that’s what they have taken. And, they’ve pleaded that it’s legal and there’s no harm in taking it.”
Drugs busts in Fermanagh: March 2012 – August 2014:
• August 2014 – Cannabis plants with a potential street value of around £100,000 seized by police in the Newtownbutler area
• April 2014 – Approximately £9,000 worth of cocaine was located by police in the Lisnaskea area
• January 2014 – Cannabis with an estimated street value of £160,000 seized by police in the Enniskillen area
• May 2012 – Drugs with an estimated street value of £130,000 seized in the Garrison area
• December 2012- Approximately £175,000 of Cannabis plants seized in the Lisnaskea/Derrylin area
• April 2012 – Approximately £19,000 worth of cannabis plants seized in the Belcoo area.
• March 2012 – 800 cannabis plants, worth about £350,000, found during a search in the Tempo area.
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