Video: Bids to smuggle millions of drug pills foiled in UAE

Abu Dhabi - Some of the operations were conducted in coordination with police from the neighbouring countries.

The Ministry of Interior has foiled attempts to smuggle millions of Captagon pills in various operations this year.

Authorities said the drug smuggling operations were intercepted by the ministry's anti-narcotics department in cooperation with its counterparts in neighbouring countries.

In a joint operation with its Jordanian counterparts in May, the department managed to seize 150,000 Captagon pills from Abu Dhabi. Two GCC nationals were arrested in connection with this.

The following week, the federal anti-narcotics department in coordination with the Abu Dhabi Police arrested another Arab national with 424,200 Captagon pills. The man was found selling some of the drugs to an Abu Dhabi resident while the rest of the drugs were found in his house.

In other operations, the federal anti-drug authorities in cooperation with the Directorate of Drug Control in Saudi Arabia managed to seize two million Captagon pills which had been smuggled into Umm Al Quwain. The drugs were found hidden in a 4x4 vehicle. Four Gulf nationals who were planning to smuggle the drugs into Saudi Arabia were arrested.

Three months after the operation, other members of the gang -- who were involved in bringing these quantities of narcotics to the UAE -- were arrested. They were found hiding another 4.2 million pills of Captagon at a farm in Ras Al Khaimah.

In another operation, authorities arrested five men in Dubai after they were found with 353,000 Captagon pills.

Authorities also seized 777,250 Captagon pills that were hidden in a resident's vehicle and his home.

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Regional networks and #drug traffickers were held by MOI pic.twitter.com/6TK13OU4wB
- MOIUAE (@moiuae) September 18, 2017

• Abu Dhabi