DUBAI: The number of drug cases in Dubai increased by 37.6 percent during the first five months of this year compared to the same period last year.
Announcing the figures during a symposium to mark the World Anti-Narcotics Day, Maj. Gen. Khamis Mattar Al-Mazeina, acting chief of Dubai police, said that 142 suspects — mostly from the African continent or South Asia — were arrested in the same period in connection with the smuggled drugs.
Al-Mazeina said the busts included 60 kilograms of heroin with a street value of AED30 million and 10 kilos of cocaine worth AED5 million.
Dubai police work closely with other law enforcement agencies to catch smugglers who use the UAE as a major transit point for drugs destined for the Middle East countries and other destinations, including East Asia.
Al-Mazeina revealed that as a result of this close collaboration, police in Uruguay managed to arrest a gang that was trying to smuggle 487 kilos of cocaine to the UAE.
"In a joint operation with the Spanish police we hauled in 200 kilos of cocaine. We also worked with Oman's police to arrest a gang that was trying to smuggle 50 kilos of hashish to the sultanate," he added.
Speaking about some of the high profile cases this year, Al-Mazeina said that in May they smashed a ring that was trying to smuggle 24 kilos of heroin worth AED6 million hidden among 3,500 cartons of oranges.
The heroin, which is mostly produced in Afghanistan, made its way to the UAE from Pakistan on its way to China. Seven men (four Africans and three Asians) were arrested in connection with the case after police received a tip-off about men working in a vegetable shop in Al-Aweer were part of the smuggling deal.
Police swooped on the gang while they were unloading the containers. After searching hundreds of boxes of oranges, they found the narcotics hidden ingeniously between the layers of the upper cover of the cardboard boxes in which the oranges were packed. There were around 200 grams of heroin hidden in each box. The team noticed that the boxes that contained narcotics had a special mark with the No. 60 on them.
