Drug-smuggling attempts foiled at Dubai airport, police say

Police have foiled recent drug smuggling attempts through Dubai International Airport to Ghana, South Africa and the Philippines.

DUBAI // A man was arrested after attempting to smuggle more than two kilograms of cocaine worth Dh370,000 to Ghana via Dubai International Airport, police said today.

Police also said in a statement today that they provided information to authorities in South Africa and the Philippines that helped foil two other drug smuggling attempts into those countries.

In the first case, Dubai Police said they received reliable information that a person who was coming to the airport might be in possession of drugs. They became suspicious of a man they later identified as IN, who was travelling from Sao Paulo, Brazil to Ghana via Dubai on December 20.

As the man was moving through the airport's Terminal 3, police stopped him and asked to search the two backpacks he was carrying.

Hidden inside the bags was 2.4 kilograms of cocaine in several plastic wraps.

IN told investigators that he had been asked to transfer the drugs to a person he did not know once he reached Ghana, according to police.

The case has been referred to public prosecution.

In the other smuggling incidents, South African authorities were able to foil an attempt to smuggle six kilograms of cocaine last month, based on information provided by the Dubai Police anti-narcotics department.

Dubai Police told South African authorities that a woman, identified as SP, 44, from an unnamed African country, was attempting to smuggle the drugs into South Africa. She was arrested in OR Tambo airport in Johannesburg after police there found the drugs hidden in her suitcases.

In the other smuggling incident, Filipino authorities arrested a woman who was attempting to smuggle three kilograms of methamphetamine, which is known in the Philippines as Shabu.

This arrest came with the help of information provided by Dubai Police, who said they discovered that the woman, identified as AA, also from an unnamed African country, was travelling from the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa to the Philippines through Dubai. Police said they discovered that the woman had the drugs on her, but they decided to let her go in coordination with Filipino authorities in an effort to learn more about the drug network for which she was working.