Trader punished for 1kg drugs in stomach

Hamza M Sengendo, Staff Reporter

An elderly trader arrived in Dubai with 1,114 grammes of cocaine in his guts. He was jailed for ten years and slapped with a Dhs100, 000 fine on Sunday.

The African defendant, 64, brought with the intention of peddling 96 capsules stuffed with a total of 1,114.13 grammes of cocaine. He was intercepted at the Dubai International Airport on Feb.18, prosecutors explained.

During a hearing on May 7 the Dubai Criminal Court’s jury ruled out the intention to peddle. He confessed. The judge asked him whether it was true as per earlier records that he had bought it to hand it to someone.

“No, it was for personal consumption,” he contended. The jury presided by Judge Mohamed Jamaal Kaamil on Sunday sentenced him to ten years in jail plus deportation and ordered him to pay a Dhs100, 000 fine.

In prosecution records, an Emirati customs inspector, 21, narrated that he was on duty in the airport’s Terminal-3 when other inspectors suspected the defendant’s movement and actions and stopped him for examination.

“They brought him to me. I asked him whether he had any items he would like to declare. He contended he had nothing illegal with him. I frisked him and also searched his bag. I failed to find anything illegal,” said the inspector.

“On having him go through the body scanner, I saw suspicious lumps inside his stomach. I asked him about them. He insisted there was nothing at all. I handed him to the Antinarcotics Department for necessary procedures.”

Separately, the same court on Sunday sentenced an Asian labourer, 42, to five years behind bars plus deportation and slapped him with a Dhs20, 000 fine. He had confessed to drug smuggling, abuse and facilitation of abuse charges.

He smuggled a plastic bag containing 22.72 grammes of marijuana through the airport and entered Dubai with it. He consumed marijuana and facilitated marijuana and heroin abuse to a man referred to the Misdemeanours Court.