Police say their work pays global dividend

DUBAI // Intelligence gathered by Dubai Police is helping nab drug dealers around the world, the force says. Maj Gen Abdul Jalil Mahdi, head of the anti-narcotics department, said yesterday that spadework in the emirate had helped foil attempts to smuggle more than five million narcotic pills and 264 kilograms of various types of narcotics. He said information provided by Dubai also had a direct impact on 35 drug cases in 19 countries.

Hashish represented more than 64 per cent of the total drugs seized in those cases, while heroin made up 25 per cent of the cases and cocaine eight per cent. "Dubai Police has set a strategy," Gen Mahdi said, "to become a defence fort for anyone who dares to mess around with its society's safety and these cases are clear evidence of its achievements in this field." Specifically, Dubai's police intelligence helped bust an attempt to smuggle more than five million capsules of an undisclosed drug into Syria, while an attempt to traffic 10.1kg of heroin was foiled in Zimbabwe, and more than 52kg of heroin and cocaine were found in South Africa.

"Our biggest challenge is to keep cracking drug traffickers tactics as it is an ongoing progress. For them, drug smuggling is their profession which they do not give up so every time we find out about their tactics and create counter tactics, they invent new ones," Gen Mahdi said. Last year's world drug report, conducted by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said Dubai was emerging as a new transit point for opiates as they pass from the world's largest heroin producer, Afghanistan, through Pakistan and onwards to destinations such as China and Malaysia.