A senior official with Europol, the EU crime-busting agency, has voiced concern about ‘worrying’ new trends in the illegal drugs market. Speaking in Brussels on Tuesday, Patrick Byrne also said that the DNA of drug smugglers had changed in recent years. ‘They are becoming more clever and more sophisticated in their methods than ever before,’ said Byrne, assistant director for the operations department at Europol. He also said drug traffickers, including Mexican cartels, were continuing to target the ‘lucrative’ drugs market in Europe, and increasingly trying to get a foothold using routes via the Balkans. Byrne was speaking at a joint news conference with Russell Benson, a regional director with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Europol has come under fire in some quarters for an alleged lack of impact in the fight against organised crime, including drug dealing. But Byrne said the agency had had a ‘real’ impact since it became a fully-fledged EU agency in 2010.
Pray: that Europol would continue to have success in tackling the drug menace. (Rom.6:20)