Scotland\'s Mexican Drug Connection

GLASGOW - “You've just come from Mexico? Well, you'll be wanting some cocaine then,” my new Scottish friend joked. “We've got loads of it here in the Highlands…Become a bit of a problem actually.”

Imagine my surprise: I had just moved to Scotland after several years covering the drug war in Mexico. I've long known Scotland had a drug abuse problem, but hadn't realized it had gotten this bad. Cocaine in the Highlands? You have got to be kidding me. Coke used to be the rich man's clubbing drug, the drug of choice in New York, London and Los Angeles, maybe at a stretch, Edinburgh. Now it's being snorted in the Highlands?

Scotland, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, is the leading per-capita consumer of cocaine in the world; it is also the worst country in the world for drug-related crimes. Thankfully, beheadings aren't common here, like they are in Mexico - but in a recent Scottish court case, it was revealed that a group of drug traffickers allegedly had video clips of men having their heads chopped off on their mobile phones. This may be an omen.

Mexican and Colombian drug cartels are responsible for the majority of drugs trafficked into Scotland, through ports in southwestern Spain and English cities like Liverpool; in recent years, the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency has made several arrests of British citizens importing cocaine from Bolivia and Ecuador, too.

Scottish authorities have expressed concern over the innovative techniques now being used to smuggle the drugs - a clear indication that bringing cocaine into the country is worth the extra effort by the mafias of the world. Agents have found cocaine inserted into wood panels, impregnated into clothing, and even concealed in packages of jam. Thankfully, no home-built submarines, like those discovered off the coast of Colombia, Mexico and Spain - yet.

Despite the continuing scourge here, the Scots' approach is wid ely heralded by other crime fighters around the world. They share information, intelligence and know-how with foreign counterparts, like the Colombians. The authorities in Mexico have taken that approach, working with counterparts in the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and acting on its intelligence in order to apprehend dozens of kingpins during the administration of President Felipe Calderon. The incoming Mexican president has also brought in a former Colombian general to spearhead the counter-drug fight for the next six years. Even Cuba and the United States have a good relationship when it comes to the anti-drug battle; during a stopover in Havana in 2010 to improve disaster relief coordination, a British Naval commander took the time to discuss counter-drug ops coordination with his country, too.

Whether any of this can really help Scotland's drug problem remains to be seen. Consumption shows no signs of slowing here: roughly four percent of Scots between 16 and 64 have used cocaine in the past year, according to authorities, nearly double the figure in the United States. And American authorities recently announced a money laundering investigation into the Royal Bank of Scotland's operations, citing concerns over deficiencies in governance, risk management and compliance systems - the very same issues that allowed billions belonging to Mexican cartels to pass through HSBC's operations, prompting a severe scolding from the U.S. Senate and the resignation of HSBC's head of compliance, David Bagley.

Malcolm Beith is a freelance journalist based in Glasgow. He has written about the drug war and organized crime for Newsweek, Slate.com, Foreign Policy, Jane's Intelligence Weekly, FDI magazine, the Sunday Times and World Politics Review, among others. He is the author of two books on Mexico's drug war, “The Last Narco” (Penguin, 2010) and “Hasta El Ultimo Dia” (Ediciones B, Mexico, 2012). He can be reached at mbeithpublic @gmail.com.