Copenhagen's Cocaine Witch Hunt

In the early days of December the Copenhagen Police department announced that they were preparing a case against the customers of two particularly active ”white messengers” who would drive around Copenhagen's nightlife delivering cocaine and MDMA to happy partygoers. Odds are the same partygoers mood will have dropped significantly this week after police started calling to tell them that they are being charged with buying illegal substances. This police tactic of going after the buyer instead of the dealer has been very popular lately, with police spending a lot of resources busting weed shoppers at Christiania. But still, this is a pretty different approach to police work.

One of the 200 people that received a phone call from the police was Niels. Okay, that isn’t necessarily his actual name but still.

”They told me, that they had me for nine deals. Which, according to the police officer I talked to, would cost me 16.000 kroner in fines. When I refused any knowledge about these deals he told me that, if I confessed, it wouldn't go on my criminal record. It kind of felt like blackmail. I’d prefer to see them in court.”

Seemingly the only real evidence in the case was an SMS between the pushers and the buyer.

So how come the police are so confident of getting convictions from the 200 people who used the dealers services while the number was being listened to?

Well, the pushers used imaginative code names such as Caroline and Emma for the drugs they were selling. The problem with that scenario is that a number of the accused firmly deny ever having used any of these codes when they met with the dealer.

Michael, who was on the receiving end of one of these not-so-pleasant phone calls, told me that he'd never used any sort of code for ordering drugs.

”I always asked if we could meet. And then we would deal in person.”

He did end up confessing after the police told him that they had a single taped conversation from November 1st between himself and the dealer.

”They told me that if I confessed I would get at fine, but that it wouldn't go on my criminal record. Only in my police file. So I just said sure and confessed to making one deal.”

After talking with numerous people, this was the only mention of a taped conversation. In the other cases the charge was based only on texts. This could be a real problem for the cop’s wet dreams of massive coke convictions, at least according to attorney-at-law Kåre Pihlmann.

”The fact that there has been contact between a persons phone and a known pusher-number is not in itself enough to get a conviction in court. One could argue that it was a wrong number or that the call or SMS was to a former owner of the phone. Or even that you intended to buy drugs but then thought better of it for various reasons. If, however, we are talking about texts with easily decodable terms, it's another story.”

So what should you do if you find yourself on the receiving end of a phone call from the police regarding that fun night out in November?

”If you got this phone call and you were my client, I would aquire the paperwork to see what the police were basing these charges on. If it was only contact between the two phones, I definitely would not advise the client to confess to anything. So my best advice is to get a good lawyer. Getting a drug conviction on your record can really hold you back later on."

He is also warning people, that just because you confess it does not mean that you will get a free pass on your criminal record.

”Fines for drugs will go on your record. A single policeman can't change that. It's the law.”

We contacted the Copenhagen Police Department and, after assuring them that we are a real magazine, are currently waiting for them to get back to us.