Duo jailed over heroin in wheelchair, shoes

Hamza M Sengendo, Staff Reporter

A handicapped passenger and his countryman who arrived in Dubai with a stash of drugs inside a wheelchair and shoes will spend ten years behind bars. The wheelchair-bound Asian salesman, 40, arrived at the Dubai International Airport with a compatriot worker, 31, on Mar.26 with 2.223kg of heroin, as per records at the Dubai Police Airport Security Department.

He had four translucent rolls wrapped with duct-tape hidden in his bag and two plastic rolls stashed inside his wheelchair. They contained 1696.2g in total. The worker’s shoes contained two rolls stuffed with 527.3g.

In court, both men contended they were not aware of the nature of the substance they were carrying. The Criminal Court sentenced each to 10 years in jail plus deportation and slapped him with a Dhs50, 000 fine.

An Arab customs officer said his colleague in the arrivals hall suspected the worker’s movement. “I tasked an inspector to frisk him and pass his shoes in the X-ray scanner. The scanner showed weird lumps.

“We opened the right shoe and removed a suspicious brown substance. The left shoe contained the same,” said the officer adding that the worker had escorted the salesman whose bag was suspected by another inspector.  An inspector manning a scanner detected strange lumps in the bag’s corners. Another inspector monitored it until it reached the conveyer belt. The worker picked it for the salesman along with the wheelchair.”

Thereafter, an airport wheelchair services employee arrived with the salesman who was on a wheelchair belonging to the airport. Inspectors referred his bag and wheelchair to the X-ray scanner for examination. A female inspector at the scanner discovered four rolls full of a brown substance inside the bag. She suspected the wheelchair’s tyres also contained similar suspicious lumps. Inspectors opened its right tyre.

It contained a similar suspicious roll. They perforated the wheelchair’s iron pipes searching for more. They detected brown powder billowing from them. Both men were referred to the Antinarcotics Department. The next day, an African photographer, 31, arrived with two paper rolls stuffed with 1261.96 grammes of cocaine. The Criminal Court has similarly jailed him for ten years plus deportation and slapped him with a Dhs50, 000 fine.

An Emirati police major said he was on duty on Mar. 27 when an inspector manning a baggage scanner at the airport suspected the contents of the photographer’s suitcase. “It contained two rolls stashed under clothes,” said the major.