Police sting catches taxi drivers selling drugs

dubai — Two taxi drivers were arrested with 35,200 narcotic pills in their possession which they allegedly intended to smuggle outside the country.

The two Pakistanis, A.K. and R.M., aged 27 and 37, were charged in the Court of First Instance on Tuesday with possession of narcotics for selling. Court documents show that the two tried to deliver the banned stuff to undercover police officers.

A police corporal said they arranged for a sting operation shortly before 6am on November 17 last year to arrest A.K. following a tip-off that he was willing to sell a large quantity of pills to one of the informants.

“Our informant and A.K. wanted to meet in Al Aweer. I went along with him and other officers of the department. The other officers watched from a distance,” the corporal said in the prosecution investigation.

The (undercover) corporal and the informant met A.K. and R.M. in the vegetable market and they all rode in the informant’s car.

“R.M. was carrying a plastic bag. He told us he got 19,000 pills. They had them carefully wrapped.”

The other officers raided the car after the drugs were given and paid for, the corporal said.

The two accused were referred to the narcotics department where A.K. admitted that he obtained the quantity from a compatriot in Naif. A.K. also claimed that he was told to keep the drugs until he found someone who could smuggle them into Saudi Arabia. He was to get paid for his part.

The police searched A.K.’s place in Satwa before midnight the same day. They seized another quantity of pills (11,000 tablets). The next hearing is set for May 1.