Drug ring busted with haul worth over RM600k
JOHOR BARU: Police scored their biggest heroin bust worth more than half a million ringgit this year with the arrests of eight men, including a Bangladeshi chemist.
Bukit Aman narcotics chief Comm Datuk Seri Mohmad Salleh said all the suspects, aged between 28 and 59, were detained on Saturday by Bukit Aman and state police officers.
The raids were conducted at seven locations where three were houses in Taman Bukit Indah, Taman Mutiara Rini, Taman Tan Sri Yaacob, Jalan Puncak Kempas Utama and Taman Bukit Perdana in Batu Pahat.
“The syndicate members were renting the premises and turned the houses into a drug processing lab.
“Another house was used as a storage unit to keep all the chemical substances,” he said during a press conference yesterday.
Comm Mohmad said police seized all the drugs worth RM640,000, comprising 3.71kg heroine, 1.06kg of heroine base, 0.44kg of ketamine, 0.11kg of syabu and 84kg of a chemical substance, believed to be caffeine.
He said besides the drugs, eight cars, worth RM801,000 used by the syndicate members, including three Mitsubishi Triton, Mercedes-Benz GLC 250, Honda Accord, Toyota Altis, Toyota Vios and Nissan Teana, were seized.
“Also seized were RM66,000 in cash.
“We were conducting surveil-
lance for the past three months before launching the sting operation,” he said.
Comm Mohmad said the drugs seized were able to cater to about 162,000 addicts here and in neighbouring countries.
He said the ingredients used were
“highly toxic and dangerous” as it was a mixture of caffeine, hydrochloric acid and rat poison.
“We are still investigating how long the syndicate has been operating.
“Checks also showed that a 32-year-old Bangladeshi was hired
as the cook to process all the drugs,” he said.
All of the suspects have been remanded until Saturday to assist investigations under Section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act, which carries the mandatory death penalty.