Finnish Customs reports a significant increase in narcotics entering Finland. The agency said on Friday that its officers have already seized 122 different narcotic substances this year. Nine of them were completely new designer drugs that have never been found before in Finland.
More marijuana, cocaine and amphetamines have already been seized than during all of last year, along with similar trends in regard to snus tobacco, cigarettes and doping substances.
In the first nine months of this year, Customs confiscated more than 830kg of marijuana, nearly twice as much as in all of 2023. Cocaine seizures totalled 44kg, three times the amount intercepted last year, while seizures of amphetamines climbed to 94kg, up by half from last year.
"We are very concerned about the almost exponential rise in the seizures of narcotic substances in the current year," said Customs Enforcement Director Hannu Sinkkonen. He added that smugglers have been finding new trafficking routes, with more narcotics being brought in via Sweden.
New designer variants constantly popping up
According to Customs officials, new designer drugs are continually appearing, with slightly new variants replacing earlier designer drugs that have been outlawed. For example, they have confiscated more derivatives of alpha-PVP than that drug itself, otherwise known as bath salts, flakka, gravel or peukku in Finnish. It was classified as a narcotic in Finland in 2013.
The Customs board notes that such designer drugs are typically bought on the dark web, bringing new enforcement challenges.
"Customs has had an important role in uncovering these marketplaces for years. Most recently, we took down the Sipulitie marketplace on the dark web in a joint effort with the Swedish Police and Europol this autumn," Sinkkonen said.
Last month the drug policy association Humaania päihdepolitiikkaa reported that Finland suffered a record-high 253 drug overdose deaths in 2023, up from 192 the previous year.
More illicit tobacco products as taxes rise
The sale of nicotine pouches was deregulated last year, sparking an initial decline in smuggling of snus – primarily from Sweden – but this year, the trend has reversed. There has also been a considerable rise in the smuggling of cigarettes, which have become costly in Finland due to tax hikes.
By the end of September, Customs had confiscated four times as much snus as during all of last year. Authorities report a similar spike in cigarette bootlegging, even though the traditional smuggling route from Russia is closed. More than five million cigarettes were seized between January and September, compared to 2.75 million in all of 2023.
"Our fear is that the cigarette smuggling will continue to grow, as the common experience is that a hike in tobacco duty will have a clear effect on the amounts of cigarettes seized,” Sinkkonen said.