Bid to smuggle 274,000 pills foiled
DUBAI: A drug smuggling atempt was foiled when Dubai Customs inspectors found drugs concealed in the fuel tank of a dhow. The smugglers, to escape inspection, hid the drugs in the hot spot of the vessel near the engine where the temperature can reach upto 60˚C.
However, the confused dhow captain aroused suspicions of inspectors and upon investigation, 137 plastic bags containing 274,000 captagon pills were found.
This is the second biggest drug seizure for the Coastal Customs Centres Management ater the seizure of 783,800 Captagon pills in 2018. There were eight drug seizures in 2018.
Dubai Customs plays a very important role in protecting society and securing borders and aims to become the leading customs administration in the world supporting legitimate trade.
To achieve its goal, Dubai Customs held 13 training workshops last year, and in the first quarter of this year it organised four training workshops targeting 178 inspectors. “Smugglers use various methods to get away with their illegal items but we thwart their atempts through our vigilant and well-trained inspectors,” Ahmed Al Daleel, Head of Coastal Customs Centre Management, said.
Recently, Dubai Customs foiled the smuggling of 800,000 Captagon pills worth Dhs3 million into the country through a special mission called “International Day Against Drugs Operation.” The drug haul was found concealed in the fuel tank of a boat shipment coming to Jebel Ali Port.
Customs intelligence officers became suspicious of an inbound shipment to Jebel Ali Port flagged by the Risk Engine system as a high-risk container consignment from an Arab country.
A team from the Special Tasks staff of Customs Intelligence Department and inspection officers at Jebel Ali Customs Inspection Centre began tracking down the movement of the shipment. Upon scanning the container using the Advanced Container Scanning system, an abnormal density was observed and with the help of the Customs K-9 Dog unit – the illegal Captagon pills were uncovered.
In the presence of the concerned importer, the team in-charge dismantled the fuel tank to find a large number of transparent bags printed with an ‘L’ brand that contained the Captagon pills.
Commenting on the seizure, Shuaib Al Suwaidi, Director of Customs Intelligence, said that the drugs smuggling atempt was efficiently foiled thanks to the targeting and risk assessment capacities of the Risk Engine System which was developed in-house by Dubai Customs.