SHARE
COPY LINK

POST

Class A drugs smuggled to Denmark via snail mail: court

Smugglers use various methods to bring illegal substances to Denmark – including the country’s post system, according to a report from a preliminary court hearing.

Class A drugs smuggled to Denmark via snail mail: court
File photo: Henning Bagger/Ritzau Scanpix

That may sound like an opportunity to make a wisecrack about the efficiency of the postal service, but the issue has resulted in an extensive investigation on Funen, Ritzau reports.

Police on Funen are investigating almost a kilogram of heroin that was sent from Afghanistan, with the suspected recipient resident in Denmark.

995 grams of the class A drug were seized by German police, according to charges read by a prosecutor at a preliminary hearing in Odense.

A 27-year-old man has been arrested for his involvement but denies charges against him, special prosecutor Klaus Lauridsen of Funen Police said.

The man was remanded in custody until August 16th in order to protect the ongoing investigation, Ritzau writes.

No further information with regard to the case was given by the special prosecutor and the hearing took place behind closed doors.

READ ALSO: Police arrest Danish man for drug dealing after TV appearance

POST

Can you rely on Sweden’s Postnord to deliver cards and presents on time?

Wednesday marks the last day you can send first class letters or parcels in Sweden and still hope they'll make it in time for Christmas Eve. But how reliable is PostNord, the company which runs Sweden's postal service?

Can you rely on Sweden's Postnord to deliver cards and presents on time?

What can you still send and hope for it to be delivered by Christmas? 

The Christmas deadline for letters and parcels outside of Sweden already passed on December 12th, as has the deadline for ordering anything online and hoping for it to arrive on time, with most e-commerce companies advising customers that anything ordered later than December 19th will not arrive in time. 

But if you’re sending first-class letters, pre-paid parcels, and small packages for delivery through the letterbox, you can still send them up until December 21st. The same goes for other parcel services such as Postnord MyPack Home, PostNord MyPack Home small, PostNord MyPack Collect, and Postpaket parcels.  

And if you’re willing to pay a bit extra, you can send express mail letters, express parcels, and first class ‘varubrev’ small parcels up until December 22nd. 

“Those dates still apply. We have written in a press statement that if you send by those dates you can be pretty sure that they will arrive in time,” Anders Porelius, head of press at PostNord, told The Local on Tuesday. 

But can you trust Postnord to deliver when they say they will? 

Not entirely.

The Swedish Post and Telecom Authority, Sweden’s postal regulator, ruled on December 8th that the company was failing to meet its regulatory target of delivering 95 percent of all letters within two working days, with 28 million letters delivered late between June and November. 

An investigative documentary by TV4’s Kalla Fakta (Cold Facts) programme, was sent pictures showing huge piles of late, undelivered letters in one of PostNord’s terminals, and interviewed postal workers who said that they were unable to complete their deliveries now they had been moved from daily to every other day, as they had twice as many letters to deliver on the days when they worked. 

“You get yelled at by the customers, and rightly so, you get yelled at by your bosses, and you scold yourself because you feel like you’re not able to do enough,” said Emilia Leijon, one postal worker. “We pretty much never manage to deliver a whole satchel. There’s too much post and too little time.” 

What is PostNord doing about the delays? 

The Swedish Post and Telecom Authority has given the company until January 30th to carry out an analysis into why it is not managing to meet its targets, and to draw up an action plan of how it is going to improve. 

SHOW COMMENTS