Dubai enforcers seize over 65 million drug pills in 6 months

Dubai’s law enforcers seized more than 65 million drug pills in the first half of 2015 as the emirate pushed ahead with a campaign against narcotic smugglers.

The counter-narcotic squads in the regional trade and business hub also succeeded in busting nearly 100.5kg of drugs and arresting 9,446 people in connection with such offences in the same period.

An intensified campaign by police and other law enforcers in the emirate against drug dealing showed smuggling cases increased to 686 in the first half of 2015 from 612 in the first half of 2014, indicating such measures are paying off.

The number of those arrested in the first half of this year was also much higher than in the same period of 2014, when 787 drug dealers were seized.

The success of such measures was underscored in drug pills, of which 65.2 million were seized in the emirate in the first half of this year compared with only around 164,000 in the same period of last year.

“We are making progress. We are targeting the drug sources and origins and the big heads in smuggling operations,” Dubai’s Assistant Police Commander-in-Chief Major General Khalil Al Mansouri said, quoted by the Arabic language daily 'Emarat Al Youm'.

He said Dubai’s counter-narcotics squads also helped foil 10 major international drug trafficking operations, resulting in the arrest of 18 smugglers and the seizure of nearly 1,254 kg of narcotics. One operation involved more than one tonne of heroin, he said.

He added that Dubai’s police had also blocked 20 websites involved in drug dealing in the first half of this year compared with 15 websites in the first half of 2014.
 

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