E-scooters a 'silent and efficient delivery service' for drug dealers

"It was seamless and so quick. The drugs came out of one bum bag, the cash went into the other," he said. 

“They can be very daring on e-scooters and they’re very numerous."

Drugs are now being distributed around cities on e-scooters, forming a silent and efficient delivery service.

A number of gardaí told the Irish Examiner that although these vehicles are being used by criminals to sell drugs, gardaí are restricted in pursuing them in case a suspect is injured in the chase and the garda is held criminally responsible.

“It’s a win-win for criminals,” one Garda source said. 

“E-scooters provide a quick, mobile getaway and gardaí are restricted in their pursuit of them.” 

Drug dealing e-scooter drivers tend to be "frighteningly young," Mr Guerin said. 

"A lot of them are minors. Drug dealers are extending lines of credit to people who cannot afford lines of credit to recruit them as mules, distributors, dealers. They get caught in the trap. And once you get into that system, there's no way out.

'Hierarchical structure'

“There is a hugely extensive hierarchical structure of people who are expendable because they are so low down in the food chain distributing drugs and one of the main modes of transport they would use in urban areas would be e-scooters."

E-scooters can also be terrifying for pedestrians in Limerick City now, Mr Guerin said.

“They’re silent so they can suddenly be on top of you. And they can travel at 60km/h. 

"I was nearly knocked down by one last week, it came within inches. 

"And I know a girl whose ankle was broken when an e-scooter travelling on the pavement hit her recently."

Driving e-scooters on pavements is illegal. 

New laws were introduced to regulate their use in May which also state that users must be 16 or older and the speed limit for e-scooters is 20km/h.

But many e-scooters can travel at much faster speeds. Their average speed reaches between 24km/h to 48km/h but some can travel at up to 130km/h.

“Legislation has been passed to better regulate e-scooter use. 

"But legislation is only as effective as the way it’s implemented,” Mr Guerin said.

In the northside of Cork City, one woman was seen riding an e-scooter erratically on a pavement in recent days.

“She was quite out of it, looking over her shoulder,” a witness said. 

“I saw another woman cross the road and call to her.

The woman on the e-scooter stopped. She took out a large, clear plastic bag and she started taking out drugs and lining them out on the ground. They looked like pharmaceutical drugs, they weren’t in boxes but they were in strips.

The Cork resident said that drug use has become much more visible and open across Cork city since the covid pandemic.

“There are some houses on Shandon St where you see open drug dealing, with people throwing drugs out the window to people.

“There was a man shooting heroin on the chapel steps off Blarney St the other day.

“Cork really needs somewhere where drug users can inject more safely. 

"It would be safer for them and safer for society and would keep needles and syringes off the streets.” 

A Garda source said that open drug dealing was now taking place all over Cork City.

“There’s open drug dealing now outside Brown Thomas,” they said.

“It would not surprise me if e-scooters were being used to distribute them,” they said.