“If you’re a drug dealer [in Belgium or the Netherlands] and you’re trying to get your 100kg of cocaine into Britain, you would often split that into four lots of 25kg. If one gets stopped, three get through. But because of the lack of opportunity they’re either sending two lots of 50 or 100 in one go, which they wouldn’t normally do. We’ve had some massive seizures.”

At street level, drugs are also being moved around in larger quantities. NCA intelligence reveals dealers are less likely to offer sales of, for instance, single rocks of crack cocaine and instead are offering bulk deals to limit interaction with users.

Disguise, said Gibbons, had also become an established tactic for street dealers. “Many disguise themselves as key workers – some as couriers with yellow high-vis slips to look as though they are making official deliveries [medical supplies].

“Others have changed their timings so they only work certain times of the day or night, rather than a 24/7 service.” he added.

Although global drug production in countries such as Colombia and Afghanistan, where heroin is produced, has remained largely unaffected by the pandemic, localised shortages in the UK have seen the price of heroin double in some places.

Cont'd:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/09/gangs-take-bigger-risks-to-smuggle-drugs-into-lockdown-britain