Drug seizures in Sweden increase dramatically

Swedish Customs seized more cocaine and cannabis during the first six months of the year than during the whole of 2022, according to statistics released on Thursday, reported Xinhua.

Nearly 3.2 metric tonnes of cannabis and 862 kilograms of cocaine were seized between January and June, Swedish Customs said in a press release. The respective figures last year were just under 2.3 metric tonnes and 822 kilograms.

Considerable seizures of amphetamine -- 530 kilograms in total -- were also made in the first half of 2023. The figure for 2022 was 548 kilograms.

On 14 occasions, customs officers confiscated more than 100 kilograms of drugs, while this happened seven times during the whole of 2022.

"Drugs are the livelihood for criminal gangs and the many recent shootings are often rooted in conflicts over the drug market," Charlotte Svensson, director general of Swedish Customs, said in the press release.

After a shooting in Farsta, a suburb of Stockholm, that killed two and injured two when a perpetrator opened fire with an automatic rifle in June, Sweden's Minister for Justice Gunnar Strommer said the violence was akin to domestic terrorism.