Brussels, 04/01/2001 (Agence Europe) - The Council of the EU has agreed to launch a joint border surveillance operations programme in 2001. We will comment on the operations in greater detail at a later date, but they will focus on:
- Operation Capricorn: carrying out controls to track down drug smuggling from the Caribbean, particularly cocaine.
- Operation Sinbad: air and sea checks in the Mediterranean.
- Operation Mercury: checking exports to North America, particularly for designer drugs
- Operation Zircon: controls on diamond smuggling from various African countries, in order to ensure the embargo on diamond exports is being maintained
- Operation Scorpio: controls on contraband cigarettes from China and South-East Asia
