5 smugglers hide 780k narcotic pills inside drilling machine

Dubai - The gang loaded a large quantity of drugs into a drilling machine aboard a ship that arrived at Hamriyah Port

The Dubai Police's anti-narcotics department have arrested a gang of five Arab men who tried to smuggle in drugs from another Arab country, by loading them into a steam which arrived at Hamriyah Port.
Brigadier Eid Mohammed Mohammed Thani Harib, director of the General Department of Anti - Narcotics, said the police received reliable information after verifying up the information under the supervision of Major General Khalil Ibrahim Al Mansouri, Assistant Commander-in-Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).
The police learnt that a gang of five individuals attempted to bring in the drugs for the purpose of trafficking, after they loaded a large quantity of drugs into a drilling machine aboard the ship that arrived at Hamriyah Port. The cops then formed a team to arrest the gang.
Brig Harib said the first and second defendants - a business partner and engineer - were arrested as they attempted to remove the drugs from the machine. The third and fourth defendants were arrested in a hotel in another emirate, while the fifth man was nabbed in Dubai.
On dismantling the machine, the police found a huge quantity of pills - 783,800 in number - of three different drugs, concealed inside the cylinder in the front of the machine. In addition to this, 562 plastic bags with a total of 115 kg of captagon pills were found.
The five defendants were then referred to the Dubai Public Prosecution on charges of smuggling in psychotropic substances.
amira@khaleejtimes.com