Anti-drugs unit arrests nearly 1,500

DUBAI // Anti-narcotics officers seized more than 400kg of drugs and 4.6 million contraband pills last year, Dubai Police said yesterday. Tip-offs from Dubai officers to their counterparts in other countries led to a global haul of more than five million narcotic pills, 170kg of hashish and nearly 100kg of other serious drugs. A total of 1,483 suspects were arrested in Dubai last year on drugs-related charges, including 67 women.

Of the suspects, 627 were Arab or GCC nationals; 562 were Asian and 112 European. Police declined to say whether the figures represented an increase in seized drugs or arrests from 2008. Maj Gen Abdul Jaleel Mahdi, the director of the anti-narcotics department of Dubai Police, said in a report that the ongoing struggle against drug traffickers required special skills "that must be constantly developed to keep pace with the drug traffickers' capability to innovate and improve their methods".

He said that on 35 occasions last year the anti-narcotics unit detected a drugs shipment intended for another country and let it go through so that arrests could be made in the destination country. Those cases led to the discovery of more than 66kg of heroin, 20.9kg of cocaine, 6.1kg of amphetamines and 5.1 million illegal pills, he said. tyaqoob@thenational.ae