Scotland's FBI makes a nuisance of itself as gangsters reel from increase in "disruptive" operations POLICE are turning up the heat on serious and organised crime bosses in an effort to force them out of the country. The Serious and Crime and Drugs Enforcement Agency (SCDEA) - dubbed Scotland's FBI - has revealed a shift in tactics from covert operations to more in-your-face, "nuisance" policing. In its latest report, the agency revealed it had seized 782kg of illegal drugs, worth an estimated £18.45 million, and arrested 194 people, including 75 top-level criminals, in 2011-12. They also identified £5.2m worth of criminal assets for seizure, and took more than £1m in cash from offenders. But the biggest tactical change has seen a rise in the amount of "disruption" operations carried out. The SCDEA's last annual report, before it is subsumed into the new Police Service for Scotland in April, shows 42 high-level disruptions, including 26 drugs supply networks smashed and nine businesses, which claimed to be legitimate, linked to organised crime. Deputy Chief Constable Gordon Meldrum, director-general of the SCDEA, said: "The focus is now on disruption. For example, if a courier was leaving with £60,000, in the past, when success was measured by the amount of drugs seized, the temptation was to wait to get our hands on the drugs. Now the focus is on disruption and seizing the cash. Senior investigating officers are forced to think about what impact that would have on the crime group - 99 times out of 100, we would go for the cash. When the net closes in on a crime boss, instead of carrying out covert operations, local uniformed officers are encouraged to make regular contact, checking their car is taxed and insured, for instance, in an effort to hassle and frustrate. Police say these tactics have forced four "key" criminals to flee the country. "We're claiming that as a success," Mr Meldrum said. Others would say you're just moving the problem somewhere else. We take the view these individuals pose the greatest threat to communities in Scotland. If our legal tactics get under the skin of organised crime and makes them up sticks, that's legitimate for us to do so. Drug "mules" swallow 100 cocaine pellets THE latest SCDEA figures detail the changing face of drug use in Scotland, as criminals go to greater lengths to conceal cultivation and smuggling. Cocaine "mules" swallow up to 100 pellets of cocaine, each containing about 12g - which are not always picked up by airport scanners - to try to fly more than 1kg of Class A drugs into Scotland at a time. Cannabis growers are erecting tents that mask the heat and smell of the plants, and international producers have found new ways of developing precursor chemicals to make MDMA, which has led to a new wave of ecstasy tablets. Ecstasy seizures rose by 60 per cent to 100kg, with 300,000 tablets taken off three crime groups. In total, 157.7kg of Class A drugs were seized - including 40kg of cocaine - along with 550kg of Class B and 75kg of Class C, in 2011-12. Police say the new wave of ecstasy is more dangerous because of the experimental ways in which it is being made. Andrew Cunningham, forensic science manager at the SCDEA, said: "It is more dangerous as more things can go wrong."