Six held for promoting drugs through social media platforms

The Dubai police arrested an Arab gang of six gangsters charged with promoting drugs and organised crimes through social media.

The suspects reportedly promoted narcotic drugs among young people between the age of 18-30 years.

According to Major General Khalil Ibrahim Al Mansouri, Assistant Commander-in-Chief of the Dubai Police for Criminal Research Affairs, the police teams are always ready to confront anyone who attempts to use social media to promote narcotic drugs.

Major General Al Mansouri added, "The gang used to promote the drugs in exchange for money which had been transferred from one gangster to another through different bank accounts, and eventually all are sent to a bank account belonging to the gang leader residing in an Arab country."

Mansouri explained that the Operation was named "Operation 12" because this figure was repeated in more than one phase of the case.

On his part, Brigadier Eid Mohammed Thani Harib, Director General of Anti-Narcotics Department at Dubai Police, pointed out that the gangsters were discovered by the CID teams presided by Colonel Khaled Ali Bin Muweiza, Deputy Director General of the Drug Control Directorate, after the CID teams received confidential information alerting an anonymous person who worked for a typing office, and he used to promote the drugs through "WhatsApp."

"After identifying the suspect, teams followed him and monitored his suspicious movements. We then analysed all the information available about him, and later arrested him in front of his residing place in Dubai. After searching his apartment, teams found an amount of narcotic drugs he planned to promote," Harib pointed out.

On being questioned, it turned out that the suspect belonged to a gang whose members had university degrees, the reason why they managed to continue working in the UAE for a long time.

Harib explained that the gang consists of a bank employee who was tasked with receiving and passing suspicious remittances and hiding them from the bank's management.

The total amount of remittances he had concealed for two years amounted to Dhs12 million, according to Harib.

Besides the bank employee, the gang also included four suspects working in different private sectors.

They all were led by the commanding leader and the mastermind who planned criminal activities while residing in his home country in one of the Arab countries to which all members of the gang belonged.

The police arrested the suspects in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and all were referred to the competent legal authorities for further procedures.