Dubai: Three men have been accused of possessing 3.5 million pills of amphetamine that they intended to promote before drug enforcement officers apprehended them in a sting operation near a football club.

Acting on a tip off, drug enforcement officers were said to have commissioned an informant to communicate with the three men, two Lebanese brothers and an Egyptian, to meet them and collect the pills in February.

The informant contacted the younger brother, aged 42, and agreed to meet him in front of a hypermarket in Al Ghusais and to take the banned pills that were meant to be transported to a neighbouring country.

The Lebanese man and the informant met in a parking lot of the hypermarket’s main gate, according to records, where they chatted for a while and left the place.

Drug enforcement teams were stationed in the vicinity to monitor the informant and the 42-year-old Lebanese while carrying out the deal.

After meeting the informant, the 42-year-old Lebanese was seen heading towards the accommodation of the staff that work at the football club where he disappeared for a while and then returned.

While the informant was present with the drug enforcement and police teams, the 42-year-old Lebanese was believed to have sent a voice message to him on WhatsApp, asking to meet at the place where they had met earlier.

The informant met the 42-year-old suspect and drove to the nearby accommodation and then into the parking lot. The 42-year-old Lebanese suspect had also parked his car in the same parking lot in which his 49-year-old brother and the Egyptian suspect were waiting. On this the drug enforcement officers swept into action and apprehended the three suspects while the informant was moving the banned pills to his car.

Drug prosecutors accused the trio of possessing 576kg of banned pills for promotional purposes.

The three suspects pleaded not guilty when they appeared before the Dubai Court of First Instance on Thursday.

An anti-narcotics police officer told prosecutors that the three suspects were apprehended in a sting operation following an informant’s tip off.

“The trio were kept under strict observation while they were finalising the deal with the informant. We seized more than three million pills that were stacked in a number of bags,” the officer told prosecutors.

The trial continues.