Dubai: A truck driver has been accused of smuggling and possessing 572,000 banned pills for promotional purposes.

Acting upon an informant’s tipoff, Dubai Police’s antinarcotics department apprehended the 39-year-old Jordanian driver in a sting operation outside a café in Al Ghusais in July.

The driver was said to have communicated with the informant, according to records, and agreed to bring the banned [amphetamine] pills in a car and hand them over to him around 4pm.

Records said the pills were meant to be exported to a neighbouring country.

Prosecutors accused the driver of smuggling and possessing a mind-altering substance for promotional purposes.

The defendant pleaded not guilty before the Dubai Court of First Instance on Thursday.

According to the charge sheet, prosecutors said the amphetamine pills that the suspect had possessed for promotional purposes weighed 101kg.

An antinarcotics police major testified to prosecutors that the suspect was apprehended as part of a sting operation in a parking lot near the café.

“The informant cautioned us that the driver possessed the amphetamine pills and had intended to hand them over to someone to export them to a neighbouring country. We obtained prosecutors’ permission to search and arrest the suspect and search him, his car and residence. A special police team was formed to monitor the meeting and delivery of the drugs between the suspect and the informant. After the suspect left the café, he disappeared for a while and returned in a car. Then the informant met him and drove the car until they parked in a parking lot … we raided the location and apprehended the suspect. We did not find anything with him when we searched him … The banned pills were found in the car. Upon confronting him with the findings, the suspect alleged that the person who delivered the pills to him claimed that they are enhancement pills. He further admitted that he had collected the pills from an unknown person and that he had been promised to collect Dh25,000 for delivering what he was told to be enhancement pills,” the major told prosecutors.

Presiding judge Urfan Omar adjourned the case until the suspect’s lawyer reviews the case file.