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29 March 2024

Drug racket that flew in human heroin mules busted

The men arrested and the network. (SUPPLIED)

Published
By Mohamad El Sidafy

Dubai Police have busted a major international drug trafficking operation which used human mules to smuggle heroin in to the country.

In an anti-narcotic operation that was launched in July last year, 21 people have been arrested trying to enter the country with the drug in capsules swallowed.

More than 18kg of the drug was recovered, which police say was to be distributed locally.

Meanwhile, Dubai Police have asked Pakistan to arrest two of its nationals who are thought to be the masterminds behind the network.

"Our investigations have revealed that the two men are operating one of the most dangerous drug trafficking gangs in the world,"  Major General Abdul Al Jaleel Al Mahdi, the head of the anti-narcotic department at Dubai Police, said today.

"They are taking advantage of poor people to make them smuggle these drugs inside their bodies for as little as US$300 dollars.

“Some poor people agree despite the deadly risk which might occur if the capsules explode inside the body."

A sudden rise in the number of people caught smuggling heroin in this way prompted police suspicions that an organised network must be targeting the country.

Headed by two brothers, the gang was identified by police in Dubai. Anti-drug authorities in Pakistan, where the gang lives, have been informed about their illegal activities, Major General Abdul Jalil Mahdi, Director of Dubai Police's Anti-Narcotics Department, said.

Captain Ebrahim Al Seba'a, Director of the International Anti-Narcotics Division, said police were able to identify a common pattern among all the suspects who were smuggling heroin in their bodies.

Al Sebaa added that the gang members had all arrived in Dubai on the same budget airline, through Terminal 2, on a visit visa, and that they have no connections in the UAE.

"The amount of cash they carried was not enough to spend a night even at the cheapest hotel in Dubai," Capt Al Sebaa said.

"We have informed the Pakistani authorities about the two suspected heads of the gang, and it is up to them now to arrest them, and the Interpol was also informed about the gang and its method," Maj Gen Mahdi said.

"We found 182 capsules in the guts of the last suspect arrested, with a weight of almost one and a half kilos," Maj Gen Mahdi said.

Fourteen of the arrests were made in Dubai, five in Abu Dhabi and two in Oman.