Claims that the current economic crisis may be helping to fuel crime have been underlined this week with news that a failed drug smuggler has been jailed.

Rory Forrester, a 25-year-old man from Violet Street in Londonderry, appeared at Coleraine Magistrates court on Tuesday.

The court heard that customs officers found cocaine with a street value in excess of £80,000 in his baggage when he was stopped at Belfast International Airport after arriving from Amsterdam in December.

Forrester was convicted and jailed for two and a half years for attempting to smuggle cocaine into Northern Ireland.

Meanwhile, in a separate incident, Uchie Nnadi, 36, from the Netherlands, was jailed for four and a half years for attempting to smuggle over 1.2 kilos of cocaine into Northern Ireland in November 2007. He was also ordered to be deported afterwards.

Earlier this week a local PSNI Crime Prevention Officer, John Wilson, said he thought the current economic crisis was challenging people's values.He said that people in Londonderry may be turning to violent crime because of the credit crunch.

The officer, who works with the victims of armed robbery, said there have been 22 armed robberies in Derry so far this year, compared to 19 in the whole of 2007.

He was commenting on foot of the latest incident, on Tuesday, when cash, cigarettes and Derry City match tickets were taken during an armed robbery in the Bogside.

"People who wouldn't have given a crime a second thought in days gone by probably will turn towards crime.

"This could be maybe taking cash from somebody in the workplace, to maybe a more serious crime like going out and committing a robbery," he said.

See: Airport Seizures: Men Held

(BMcC)