Brothers, friend held with 559kg of drug, court hears

dubai — Two Lebanese brothers and their Egyptian friend were arrested in a sting operation by the Dubai Police anti-narcotics department, a court was told.

They were all charged in the Court of First Instance with possession of drugs to sell.

During the arrest made on February 13 in Al Qusais, a quantity of amphetamine tablets were seized from the two brothers, aged 42 and 49, and the other man, 40.

“We were tipped off that one of the two brothers was a member of an international gang that was into exporting and importing drugs. We learnt he was near the used cars market in Al Aweer and had a large quantity of narcotics in his possession. He was about to deliver a large haul of amphetamine to one of our sources to smuggle it outside the UAE,” an anti-narcotics police major told the prosecutor.

After verifying the information to be true, an anti-narcotics task force was formed to arrest the suspects.

“We met and instructed that source on our plan to arrest the suspect red-handed.

“He was with us in Al Qusais when he received a voice note on WhatsApp from the suspect. The latter was rushing him to go meet him in the car park of a hypermarket,” the major said.

The accused then went to a building while the police officers were still watching him.

“Our informant told us that the accused went to bring the drugs and he would come back about one hour later. Later, the accused sent a voice note to the informant to meet him again and the two met in the same hypermarket parking lot.”

The accused rode in the informant’s car and led him to the building where he parked his car. His two accomplices then arrived in their vehicle and the accused told the informant to park behind it. He was seen transporting large bags from their car into the other car.

At that moment, the police raided them after showing them the public prosecution warrant.

The officers searched the bags and found the tablets.

The quantity of amphetamine pills seized from the two brothers and their friend weighed 559kg.

mary@khaleejtimes.com