Lithuanian Mafia?
In the 5 September issue of Morgunblaðið there appeared an article over a growing concern that a Lithuanian mafia has established itself in Iceland, and is importing drugs. But when you actually read what the key players in this story are saying - and then look at the reality of Iceland's drug problem - many troubling questions arise.
Jóhann R. Benediktsson, the sheriff of Keflavík International Airport, got in touch with Minister of Justice Björn Bjarnason on this matter. Here is what Bjarnason had to say:
We see now that many Lithuanians have been arrested [on drug charges] in recent months, which confirms that customs officers and police have not been protecting the borders.
Of course, both Bjarnason and Benediktsson will be the first to tell you that many more Icelanders than Lithuanians have been arrested for trying to smuggle in drugs - in fact, the 6 September issue of Blaðið ran an article on drug arrests at Keflavík airport that shows that of the 32 drug arrests made between January and August of this year, more than half of them are Icelanders. In addition, the three largest smuggling busts made this year were of Icelanders. Among the other nationalities caught trying to bring drugs into Iceland through the airport, Danes and French topped the list. The number of Lithuanians arrested on drug charges in Iceland? Five total. These figures are taken from Keflavík Customs Office records; records that Benediktson should be aware of. Yet neither he nor Bjarnason have suggested that an Icelandic, Danish or French drug mafia is growing in this country.
This is what is known as "profiling" - the criminalization of a race or ethnic group, singling them out specifically as being more worthy of suspicion of committing a crime than other races or ethnic groups. Not only is the practice insulting to the 614 Lithuanians living, working, and paying their taxes in Iceland, it is also ineffective in fighting the influx of drugs. Unfortunately, it seems this blanket labelling is already starting to take root in people's minds.
In the same Morgunblaðið article, Þórarinn Tyrfingsson, the head doctor at the drug treatment centre Vogur, also believes that there's a Lithuanian mafia in this country, based on the fact that methamphetamine use in Iceland has increased. This leap of logic - that methamphetamines = Lithuanians - is flat-out discriminatory and contradictory to reality.
So what exactly are the police preparing to do? In the article, Bjarnason says that capital area police are being combined into a single unit, and that after the new year the sheriff at Keflavík airport will be the cheif of police for the Suðurnes peninsula. This will probably mean that people coming to Iceland with a Lithuanian passport can expect to be searched, simply because of their country of origin. They might as well find themselves under police surveillance. All a part of the costly and ineffective practice that profiling is.
I don't know how much time Bjarnason has actually spent reading about Iceland's drug underground, but one man I spoke to for the Grapevine, Skuggabörn author Reynir Traustason - a person who's spent a great deal of time within Iceland's drug world - suggests a much different approach to fighting the import of drugs:
All the harbours, all around the country, are wide open. The drugs are not usually brought over in the hold of the ship. People sending drugs over to Iceland from countries like Germany or England will have divers attach the drugs to the bottom of the ship. And then these ships come to Iceland, to some little villages in the north and the west. And checking all the ships would take a lot of police and a lot of money, and a dog almost never goes on board a ship.
Look, I was a captain on a trawler. I know how these things work. You come back with the alcohol that you bought abroad, and two guys come on board asking if you’ve got any alcohol. You leave two or three bottles under the bed for them to find, and you say, “Here, just take this,” and everybody knows what’s going on - the customs officials are going to have a good time at home. They take a little look around, say, “OK everything is fine here,” and leave. Meanwhile, we’ve got 20 cases of alcohol in the toilet. (Source)
What would be needed, then, are more staff at these harbours, inspecting more ships more often, who all answer to a single authority and are "kept honest" by surprise visits from national law enforcement authorities. While the sheriff of Keflavík airport and the Minister of Justice are scapegoating Lithuanians as the source of Iceland's drug problem, and calling for an increase of security and manpower at the one point of entry least likely to be taken by a drug mule, these tiny little harbours all over the country go virtually unchecked and unprotected.
Of course, to step up protecting Iceland's harbours would take actual work. It's much easier to blame an ethnic minority for the source of our country's woes, instead of confronting reality and doing what it takes to get the job done.
Jóhann R. Benediktsson, the sheriff of Keflavík International Airport, got in touch with Minister of Justice Björn Bjarnason on this matter. Here is what Bjarnason had to say:
We see now that many Lithuanians have been arrested [on drug charges] in recent months, which confirms that customs officers and police have not been protecting the borders.
Of course, both Bjarnason and Benediktsson will be the first to tell you that many more Icelanders than Lithuanians have been arrested for trying to smuggle in drugs - in fact, the 6 September issue of Blaðið ran an article on drug arrests at Keflavík airport that shows that of the 32 drug arrests made between January and August of this year, more than half of them are Icelanders. In addition, the three largest smuggling busts made this year were of Icelanders. Among the other nationalities caught trying to bring drugs into Iceland through the airport, Danes and French topped the list. The number of Lithuanians arrested on drug charges in Iceland? Five total. These figures are taken from Keflavík Customs Office records; records that Benediktson should be aware of. Yet neither he nor Bjarnason have suggested that an Icelandic, Danish or French drug mafia is growing in this country.
This is what is known as "profiling" - the criminalization of a race or ethnic group, singling them out specifically as being more worthy of suspicion of committing a crime than other races or ethnic groups. Not only is the practice insulting to the 614 Lithuanians living, working, and paying their taxes in Iceland, it is also ineffective in fighting the influx of drugs. Unfortunately, it seems this blanket labelling is already starting to take root in people's minds.
In the same Morgunblaðið article, Þórarinn Tyrfingsson, the head doctor at the drug treatment centre Vogur, also believes that there's a Lithuanian mafia in this country, based on the fact that methamphetamine use in Iceland has increased. This leap of logic - that methamphetamines = Lithuanians - is flat-out discriminatory and contradictory to reality.
So what exactly are the police preparing to do? In the article, Bjarnason says that capital area police are being combined into a single unit, and that after the new year the sheriff at Keflavík airport will be the cheif of police for the Suðurnes peninsula. This will probably mean that people coming to Iceland with a Lithuanian passport can expect to be searched, simply because of their country of origin. They might as well find themselves under police surveillance. All a part of the costly and ineffective practice that profiling is.
I don't know how much time Bjarnason has actually spent reading about Iceland's drug underground, but one man I spoke to for the Grapevine, Skuggabörn author Reynir Traustason - a person who's spent a great deal of time within Iceland's drug world - suggests a much different approach to fighting the import of drugs:
All the harbours, all around the country, are wide open. The drugs are not usually brought over in the hold of the ship. People sending drugs over to Iceland from countries like Germany or England will have divers attach the drugs to the bottom of the ship. And then these ships come to Iceland, to some little villages in the north and the west. And checking all the ships would take a lot of police and a lot of money, and a dog almost never goes on board a ship.
Look, I was a captain on a trawler. I know how these things work. You come back with the alcohol that you bought abroad, and two guys come on board asking if you’ve got any alcohol. You leave two or three bottles under the bed for them to find, and you say, “Here, just take this,” and everybody knows what’s going on - the customs officials are going to have a good time at home. They take a little look around, say, “OK everything is fine here,” and leave. Meanwhile, we’ve got 20 cases of alcohol in the toilet. (Source)
What would be needed, then, are more staff at these harbours, inspecting more ships more often, who all answer to a single authority and are "kept honest" by surprise visits from national law enforcement authorities. While the sheriff of Keflavík airport and the Minister of Justice are scapegoating Lithuanians as the source of Iceland's drug problem, and calling for an increase of security and manpower at the one point of entry least likely to be taken by a drug mule, these tiny little harbours all over the country go virtually unchecked and unprotected.
Of course, to step up protecting Iceland's harbours would take actual work. It's much easier to blame an ethnic minority for the source of our country's woes, instead of confronting reality and doing what it takes to get the job done.
posted by Paul F Nikolov at 11:37 PM
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