Dubai: A truck driver has been jailed for life for smuggling and possessing 572,000 banned pills for promotional purposes.
Dubai police’s anti-narcotics department acted upon a tip off when they apprehended the 39-year-old Jordanian driver in a sting operation near a cafe in Al Ghusais in July 2016.
The driver had communicated with the informant [who tipped off the department] and agreed to bring the banned [amphetamine] pills in a car and hand them over to him around 4pm.
Primary interrogations said the pills were meant to be exported to a neighbouring country.
The Dubai Court of First Instance convicted the 39-year-old defendant of smuggling and possessing a mind-altering substance for promotional purposes.
He had pleaded not innocent in court.
Presiding judge Urfan Omar also fined the accused Dh100,000 and said he will be deported after serving his punishment.
An anti-narcotics police officer said the accused was apprehended as part of a sting operation in a parking lot near the cafe.
He said the informant told police that the driver possessed the amphetamine pills and he intended to hand them over to someone for exporting to a neighbouring country.
After obtaining prosecutors’ permission to search and arrest the accused, a special police team was formed to monitor the meeting and delivery of the drugs. After the accused left the cafe, he disappeared for a while and returned in a car. When the informant met the accused in a parking lot … we apprehended him and found the banned pills in his car.
The accused told police that he got the “enhancement pills” from an unknown person and that he had been promised Dh25,000 for the delivery job.
The ruling remains subject to appeal within 15 days.
