Last post of 2025 and it looks a bit of a downer but not if you now decide to double your efforts for a border - Best wishes for the new year everyone! John

Professor John Robertson OBA

In the Edinburgh Reporter today:

Police seized almost £80million worth of drugs across the country in 2025 as officers continue to act to tackle organised crime.

The report makes no reference to how these drugs got into Scotland other than to attribute the cannabis share (£`15m) to ‘farms’ in Fife. While the Edinburgh Reporter and presumably Police Scotland do not tell us, the Daily Record and the Albanian Daily News in English do tell us that they’re all from Albania.^{1. 2}

What about the more dangerous drugs? Connor Gillies knew SIX years ago!

BBC Scotland’s Connor Gillies wrote the above in 2019 and was soon away to Sky News before he could ‘bring himself and the BBC into disrepute‘ with clear anti-English sentiments. It has never been repeated to this day.

What about the strong stuff?

From a 35 source AI search:

However, class A drugs like cocaine and heroin, which made up key high-value recoveries (e.g., £8 million cocaine in Bellshill in December, £1 million cocaine in West Lothian in February, and over £1.3 million in heroin and cocaine combined in Aberdeen in August), are predominantly imported. Evidence points to these substances frequently entering Scotland via established supply routes across the border with England, primarily through road, rail, and county lines operations.

County lines—drug distribution networks originating from English cities like Liverpool, Manchester, London, and Birmingham—account for a major share of class A drug trafficking into Scotland, with over 20 active lines identified in recent years, often targeting rural and northern areas to bypass central belt markets.

These networks exploit the open border, using vehicles and public transport to move supplies north, and represent the most common importation method for illicit commodities into Scotland. While some drugs enter Scotland directly via international routes (e.g., ports or airports), the majority of supply chains for cocaine and heroin involve initial importation to English hubs before onward distribution across the border.

Joint operations between Police Scotland and English forces, such as Merseyside Police, have disrupted specific county lines (e.g., a December 2025 bust targeting supply from Prescot to Peterhead), underscoring the cross-border nature of these activities. Overall, while exact proportions vary by drug type, border-crossing routes from England play a central role in supplying class A drugs, contributing to an estimated 40-60% of the total seized value when accounting for the dominance of imported substances in non-cannabis recoveries.

See that ‘exploit the open border?’ If only there was some way we could do something about that.

Sources:

1. https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/violent-albanian-crime-gangs-34415047
2. https://albaniandailynews.com/news/albanian-drug-gangs-flooding-scotland-as-energy-companies-urged-to-tackle-crime