Towels used to hide haul of 234,000 tramadol pills

Officers at Dubai Customs have seized 234,000 tramadol tablets concealed in a shipment of towels.

The customs service said yesterday that officers in Jebel Ali and Tecom had detected unusual variations in the shipment when scanning it.

Further inspections revealed a cache of the painkiller concealed inside.

The shipment came from an Asian country, Dubai Customs said. It did not identify the country or provide any further information about the seizure.

Ahmed Musabih, director general of Dubai Customs and chief executive of the Ports, Customs and Free Zone Corporation, said Dubai has become an international model in how to tackle drugs, their associated risks and health hazards.

Rashid Al Suwaidi, acting director of sea customs management, said Dubai Customs was committed to protecting society from the harmful effects of drug addiction. The department focuses on training and equipping its staff with advanced technology to detect smuggling attempts, irrespective of the diverse methods used by the smugglers, he said.

Dubai Customs uses stateof-the-art measures to counter smuggling, including early warning systems to identify suspect shipments, X-ray detection and specially trained K9 dog units. In September, a Dubai Customs task force foiled a plot to smuggle more than 200,000 doses of narcotics into the country.

The haul was valued at an estimated Dh6.2 million.

Prosecutors in Dubai warned last year that social media platforms were fuelling drug addiction among teenagers.

The average age of addiction, they said, was between 14 and 20 years old.

Tramadol was listed as one of the most commonly used drugs by addicts along with Captagon, hallucinogenic mushrooms and hash. Police urged parents to be extra vigilant in monitoring their children’s online activities.