Mr. António Manuel Leitão da Silva:

Of course as a police officer I will not explain too much on that, a reserve position the committee will probably understand. The drug markets are controlled sometimes by families and sometimes by gangs but not - as I know - from the same status of Ireland. The point is, and especially in the context of a family perspective, one of the problems we have in Portugal is that someone who is fully engaged with drug dealing is not just one individual from the family but the whole family. The individuals know that one of these days they are going to be arrested by the police but this will not stop the drug activity because they will leave the other members of the family running the same business. In this way it is a family thing most of the time. In Porto especially they are taking advantage of some social neighbourhoods where the police actions are much more critical and difficult.