Dubai: A worker was apprehended by drug enforcement officers for possessing a tiny amount of drugs for promotional purposes after he communicated with a drug convict, who is behind bars.

An informant was said to have alerted Dubai Police’s anti-narcotics department that the 40-year-old Filipino worker possessed and consumed drugs in October.

After having obtained a search and arrest warrant from Dubai prosecutors, a drug police team raided the Filipino’s house in Karama and apprehended him.

During the search operation, the worker guided the drug officers to the balcony of his flat where he had hidden tiny amount of methamphetamine, according to records.

When asked who had provided him the drug, the 40-year-old suspect told interrogators that his countryman convict called him from Dubai Central Jail and told him about the place from where to pick up the banned substance.

Prosecutors accused the suspect of possessing 0.49g of methamphetamine for promotional purposes. He was also accused of consuming the same kind of banned substance.

The Filipino suspect admitted that he possessed the drug but refuted the intent to promote them when he defended himself before the Dubai Court of First Instance on Thursday.

The suspect told presiding judge Urfan Omar that he possessed the methamphetamine for his personal use.

An antinarcotics police officer told prosecutors that the suspect was apprehended shortly before night.

“When we searched his flat, he guided us to the balcony where he had hidden the drugs inside a suit that was hung in a cupboard. Upon questioning him about who had provided him that drug, he claimed that his countryman [who is a drug convict and imprisoned at Dubai Central Jail] called him to pick the drug from a certain spot. The suspect alleged that the convict used to ask him to keep the drugs for some time until someone comes to purchase them. After selling the drugs, according to the suspect’s statement, he would transfer the proceeds to his countryman’s account. The suspect said that he used to get a commission for doing so … and he also sold drugs to two Filipinos in Sharjah and Al Ain,” the police officer told prosecutors.

Presiding judge Omar will hand out a ruling on January 18.