ABU DHABI // The Minister of Interior on Thursday published on Twitter a video of a police sting on drug smugglers that uncovered 4.5 million narcotic pills with an estimated street value of Dh250 million.
Sheikh Saif bin Zayed, who is also the Deputy Prime Minister, announced the police operation, code-named Wooden Doors, which resulted in the discovery of the UAE’s biggest drug-smuggling case.
The video begins with police survelliance footage of two suspects at home in Al Ain in the daytime and at night.
As the video’s background music intensifies, the video shows two heavily tinted undercover police cars pull up to the suspects’ home in daylight.
Heavily armed officers then kick down the front door to find the first suspect, an Arab, in his pyjamas.
Amid the shouting and confronted by the armed officers, the suspect surrenders and is handcuffed. The second suspect, a fellow Arab, is also found and handcuffed.
In the house and in a warehouse in Al Ain, police discovered 4 million narcotic pills.
In Dubai, where 11,750 of such pills were found, police surveilled an SUV and arrested an Arab and an Arabian Gulf national said to be involved in the case. Four people were arrested in all.
The authorities said Sheikh Saif showed great interest in the police operation and followed the case personally.
The Ministry of Interior was tipped off by its counterpart in Kuwait.
The drugs were transported to the UAE through air cargo from a Middle Eastern country.
Abu Dhabi Police said the drugs were intended to be smuggled abroad.
osalem@thenational.ae
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Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
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The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
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