Narcotics peddler gets 10 years in jail

Emad Eddin Khalil, Ameer Al Sonny, Staff Reporters

A Khaleeji drug peddler has been given a 10-year-jail term and slapped with a fine of Dhs50,000 by the Fujairah Criminal Court.

According to the police records, the Anti-Narcotics Department received verified information the defendant had brought narcotics to Fujairah for peddling purposes.

A team put him under surveillance and arrested him in an ambush in possession of the drugs.

He was then transferred to the Public Prosecution and was charged with trafficking and promoting drugs.

In a unrelated event, The Abu Dhabi appellate court heard a case in which an Asian was charged with threatening a compatriot lady of killing her nephew if she refused to give him the Wi-Fi passwords through his mobile.

The suspect confessed to the charge but said he did not deliberately threaten her. He asked the court to show mercy on him as he was jobless and wanted to find one to send money to his family in his home country.

The court has deferred the verdict to Aug. 28.

In another case, an Asian charged with insulting a bank via e-mails was brought before the Abu Dhabi Appellate Court.

According to the case papers, the suspect sent e-mails to the bank filled with insults.

During the hearing, the suspect denied the charge and said that he had not sent any such e-mails because he was outside the country.

The court has deferred the case to Sept 18.

Recently, a drug smuggling attempt 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 after 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.