Muscat Oman police foiled an attempt to smuggle hashish and qat from the southern borders of the country. “Two nationals of a Gulf country were held at the border near Thumrait (about 1,016-km south of Muscat) in Dhofar region,” a spokesman for the ROP said. The police removed 25-kg of hashish and three packets of qat, a stimulant drug derived from a shrub. He added that the sleuths from the Directorate-General of Combating Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (DGCDPS) acted on a tip off and kept a watch to arrest the two accused while entering the country. “We also found pistols on the accused and have filed charges of illegal possession of fire arms on the two,” the spokesman added.
Interestingly, this is the second case this month where drug traffickers were caught with pistols. Last week three suspects were arrested from Central Province for smuggling narcotics and police had found five pistols in their possession.
The police also seized 30,393 pistols from Sohar Industrial Port last week and arrested nine Omanis on charges of ‘helping’. The police, without revealing name of the country, had said that the container was transiting through Sohar on its way to another country. However, sources said that the ship had come from Turkey and was headed to Yemen. In another drug bust, the police arrested a man from Muttrah area in Muscat with 46 capsules filled with heroin and charged him for trafficking narcotics. The police have also arrested four young Omanis for two different robbery cases in Seeb suburb of Muscat. In the first case, two suspects (aged 20 and 22) broke into a parked car in Seeb and decamped with a fuel recharge card as well as mobile phones. Two other citizens (aged 25 and 28) were arrested from same area for robbing valuables from an Omani woman’s car after diverting her attention. The two stole the lady’s purse, mobile phone, car keys and other valuables as soon as she stepped out of the car after the two accosted her. “Both were arrested and all the stolen goods recovered,” the police spokesman said. He urged motorists to be careful and not leave valuables in the car unattended to avoid thefts from the parked vehicles.
