Dubai court fines and jails traveller for bringing drugs into UAE

Dubai Criminal Court convicted an Asian traveller for smuggling 480 capsules of a prohibited medication in his luggage.

The court sentenced him to two years in prison, followed by deportation, and fined him Dhs100,000. Additionally, he was prohibited from transferring or depositing any funds to others, either directly or indirectly, without permission from the Central Bank of the UAE in coordination with the Ministry of Interior, for two years after completing his sentence.

The items seized were also confiscated.

Details of the case date back to the time when a customs officer at Dubai Airport suspected the contents of the suspect’s bag as it passed through the hand luggage screening device in the arrivals hall.

When asked if he had anything to declare, he denied it but the inspection revealed a large number of capsules suspected to be a prohibited medication, leading to his referral to the competent authorities for interrogation.

The seized items were sent to the Dubai Police Criminal Laboratory for analysis.

The laboratory report affirmed that the 480 capsules contained a prohibited substance which requires a certified medical prescription, as the substance was classified as a controlled psychotropic substance under Schedule 8 of Federal Law No. 30 of 2021 concerning the Combating of Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.

On being interrogated, the suspect admitted to obtaining the medication from his home country with the intent to deliver it to someone else in the UAE.

However, he could not provide a medical prescription or legal licence justifying his possession of the medication.

Although he later denied the charge during the court hearing, evidence from the customs inspector’s testimony, the seizure report documented by the General Directorate of Anti-Narcotics, and the forensic report affirmed that the suspect knew about the prohibited substances and brought them into the country.