PESHAWAR, 20 June 2003 — Pakistan foiled an attempt to smuggle a large quantity of hashish to Saudi Arabia and arrested four people, officials said yesterday.
Customs intelligence officials recovered 868 kilograms of hashish in the northwest city of Peshawar from a consignment of 217 washing machines booked for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, via Karachi port, senior customs officer Jehanzeb Mahmood said.
“The hashish was cleverly concealed in secret cavities of the washing machines,” Mahmood told reporters in Peshawarn.
The haul was made as customs officials checked a Saudi-bound container at Peshawar’s dry port late Wednesday.
Two employees of a Pakistani company which had booked the machines and two customs clearance agents were arrested.
Efforts were under way to arrest the drug traffickers, Mahmood said. “Had they succeeded in sending the hashish to Saudi Arabia it would have brought a bad name to the country,” he said.
