Party Vibe

@Digital Buddha 601342 wrote:

i’m not too good with U.K. drug geography and only know what i do from you but why wouldn’t B’ham be a good spot to unload mass quantities?

it would be but not in a foreign (but European) emergency service vehicle; a few hundred km inland from any North Sea coast. Attempting to impersonate Emergency Services is a separate offence in itself which the authorities look out for especially around big cities like Birmingham as its often used as a cover for violent robberies – if there was a legit cross country working agreement the Ambulance Service often sends a press release to the news media to explain this as folk here are still a bit suspicious of “foreign” stuff.

Incidentally there are folk who collect US police cars, fire trucks etc to restore and drive in the UK; they have to have any blue lights covered up but the red ones are OK as we don’t use flashing red exclusively for an emergency service vehicle here (it only means STOP when shown with other blue lights).

You cannot even put blue LED flashers on a bicycle in UK or NL or you can be nicked; as both Police and Ambulance use bicycles in many areas (in small countries they can get to town squares a lot quicker than cars, and a bicycle can carry defibrilators and other medical stuff (they are of course well guarded and GPS tagged)

Another report from the national Guardian newspaper from the UK with a picture of the ambulance. Will check De Volkskrant when I get the time to see what they say on the matter but you now need a login code for them although registration is free they collect some info for advertisers (this all goes to a non priority email address of mine anyway).

On closer observation the vehicle is missing some important details such as the region its allocated to and some other markings – TBH looks more like what you would see on a TV drama show made by NPO Hilversum rather than a real one.

I suspect this is because its equally illegal to impersonate emergency services in NL and easy to get found out doing so – the country is full of spotters and has had a tradition of openness with regard to public service activities (it is for instance allowed for normal citizens to monitor their radio pager networks with callout info; a practice which is not permitted in the UK).

Fake ambulances used to smuggle £1.6bn of drugs into UK, court told | UK news | The Guardian

@Digital Buddha 974139 wrote:

£1.6bn; the guardian seems to be pulling that figure out of thin air…

they are reporting what the NCA (national Police service, the nearest the UK has to the FBI) told the Court. Police services (worldwide?) always quote the highest street value of the entire seizure(s) (or an amount equivalent the estimated capacity of the transport methods) sold as individual doses.

the NL Politie found yet more ambulances in NL kitted out for this kind of transport suspected to have been involved in cross border activities.

This may well be a further angst-point – it would not be unusual to find ambulances stationed near to where such things as licensed EDM events in their own country; these units often being “out of area” or private ambulances which are also permitted to use the same colour scheme as the national ones in many countries.

It is very likely to be illegal (contempt of Court) for a journalist in the UK to report anything other than what they have witnessed in the Court case; the same rules may apply across the EU unless stricter domestic ones are already in place – in NL it would not have been permissible to release the level of personal info about the defendants as UK has done; though I suspect NL and UK avoid diplomatic embarrasment as the crimes they committed in the UK are viewed as more serious here than in NL.

Especially if the defendants are suspected of similar domestic offences but a lack of evidence / greater privacy has made it harder for NL authorities to catch or deter them I would not be surprised if NL Politie and NCA worked together on the “estimated amount” to make it as high as possible.