Sharjah Police thwart attempt to bring in narcotic drugs worth Dhs14 million

Gulf Today, Staff Reporter

Sharjah Police’s anti-narcotics agents arrested a gang of 32 Asians and Arabs who attempted to smuggle a quantity of narcotic drugs and over one million pills of psychotropic substances with an estimated market value of Dhs14 million into the UAE via a neighbouring country.

The gang was arrested in an international operation called ‘Kashf Al Sitar’ in collaboration with the security authorities of a neighbouring country.

According to Colonel Majid Al Asam, Director of Anti-narcotics Department at Sharjah Police, a tip-off was received from a source stating that an international gang was in the process of bringing quantities of narcotic drugs into the country for trading purposes.

After the tip-off had been confirmed true, the anti-narcotics agents conducted the necessary investigations and were on the watch round-the-clock and their efforts led to the arrest of some gang members with 50 kilograms of hashish and 49 litres of liquid crystal in their possession.

It turned out that they were receiving instructions from another gang member who lived outside the country.

Further searches and investigations shed more light on the nature of the cross-country criminal scheme and showed that other gang members took a secret warehouse in a neighbouring emirate to store the narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances.

Accordingly, Sharjah Police set a tight plan and managed to arrest the rest of the gang members and to seize 1.17 million pills of psychotropic substances.

The gang used two methods to smuggle the narcotic drugs, the first was exploiting a customs clearance company to bring psychotropic substances into the country illegally and the second was hiding the liquid crystal in the body of the car that entered the country, Al Asam said.

However, the vigilance of the anti-narcotics agents, who were on the lookout, thwarted the gang’s despicable plans and led to the seizure of the narcotic drugs after some customs clearance procedures had been modified in collaboration with the customs authorities in the country, he added.