Within 10 weeks customs officers made four seizures of cocaine from Amsterdam.

The Belfast Telegraph has learned that in five out of six recent seizures the drug had been smuggled inside the trafficker's body, either swallowed or carried in the vaginal or rectal areas.

" Cocaine is being smuggled into Northern Ireland by air and stuffed into the body. If we suspect someone is smuggling drugs internally we have to keep them in hospital conditions. It is a serious risk to their health. If one of these packets split they are almost certainly going to die," the Assistant Director of Criminal Investigations at HM Revenue and Customs, John Whiting, said.

The average amount of cocaine that traffickers are smuggling inside their bodies into airports across the UK is between half a kilo and a kilo. However, there was a case in Scotland where a man was caught with 200 pellets - about two kilos - inside his body.

Other methods detected have included smuggling cocaine in teddy bears, nappies and even in hollowed out avocado pears.

Customs officers play a key role in preventing illegal drugs from entering the UK. In Northern Ireland they carry out mobile patrols at seaports, warehouses and land boundaries and at the airports they gather intelligence on certain flights and individuals.

According to Mr Whiting, a large number of drug traffickers are foreign nationals and people on low incomes.

" They think they are being paid well, but it is probably not the sort of money you or I would want to take the risk on. They are doing it out of desperation. The top men are not going to take the risk. It is the poorest in society who are taking the risks and they are the ones almost certainly going to be caught and imprisoned," he said.

With the recent growth in budget flights to and from Northern Ireland, a large number of potential drug trafficking routes has been opened up.

Mr Whiting said that if there are budget flights to countries where there is a ready supply of drugs, for example Spain or the Netherlands, it is going to make it easier to smuggle drugs.

"If we didn't have those flights, or those flights cost £500, it is going to be a disincentive. If it costs £20 to get to Amsterdam and £20 back, then clearly it is going to be easier to do it," he said.

Although cocaine seizures in the province have rocketed by over 2,000% in the space of six years, Ireland is a very small part of the European drugs market.

Cocaine is first shipped out of Colombia and Venezuela to the Caribbean, west Africa and large European ports like Antwerp, Rotterdam, and Felixstowe. Along the way large ships have been known to stop offshore around the Irish, English or European coastline for fast boats to sail out and collect smaller batches for distribution.

Once the shipments arrive at a seaport they are broken down and transported around Europe and the UK. Smaller quantities are then re-smuggled into Ireland by land or air routes.

"Any smuggling has to follow the normal business transport. Think of where the direct flights come from and that is a potential air route," said Mr Whiting.

"We are working abroad at the pinch-points. We have customs officers in west Africa, Ghana and Jamaica, who are working with customs officers there because these are identifiable routes into the UK. We are trying to take out the large shipments before they are split up.

"It is perhaps more efficient and more impactive if that tonne of cocaine is seized in Colombia than to wait for it to arrive in Europe where it would be cut up and broken down. Large quantities of cocaine are being stopped from coming into Northern Ireland because of operations abroad."

HM Revenue and Customs work closely with the PSNI and SOCA (Serious Organised Crime Agency) in a bid to prevent cocaine and other illegal drugs from getting into Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

"We share intelligence which is why the UK is hard to bring these big shipments into. That is why they are resorting to bringing in small quantities by plane - if you bring in large shipments you will get caught," said Mr Whiting.

How the law identifies the supply chain

Crime gangs in Ulster place their cocaine order with 'wholesalers' based in England, who receive their supply from European distributors - larger crime gangs based around the southern tip of Europe or Africa - that deal directly with the drug barons at source countries.

A number of the province's drug gangs are understood to be dealing largely with 'wholesalers' in Liverpool where there is a big supply and demand for cocaine.

The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) works internationally to disrupt large drug shipments before they are broken down for the UK markets.

SOCA has the second largest overseas network in the world, with officers based in every country where crime could affect the UK.

On a number of occasions, large shipments of cocaine and other illegal drugs have been hampered in Europe, before they could be broken down into smaller quantities and re-smuggled into Northern Ireland.

Within the last financial year SOCA was involved in the seizure of 73 tonnes of cocaine believed to have been destined for the UK market.

Recently a delivery of 30 kilos of heroin, as well as firearms and ammunition, was prevented from entering Ireland through a route via the ferry port at Holyhead after SOCA gained intelligence about the activities of a group in the Merseyside area engaged in trafficking.