Dubai: Two visitors have been jailed for life for smuggling 191kg of amphetamine pills that they intended to promote before the contraband substance was found by drug enforcement officers in their car.

Drug enforcement officers were tipped off by an informant before they monitored the two Saudi visitors, aged 26 and 31, and apprehended them from a sandy area behind a metro station.

Drug officers seized 10 bags containing more than 1.04 million pills of amphetamine from the back seat of the defendants’ car.

On Thursday, the Dubai Court of First Instance also fined the Saudi duo Dh100,000 for possessing the banned pills for promotional purposes.

The 31-year-old defendant was also convicted of consuming hashish. “I had nothing to do with the possession … I was not apprehended with any banned substance with me. I consumed drugs outside the UAE,” he told the court.

Presiding judge Urfan Omar said the defendants will be deported following the completion of their punishments.

A major of anti-narcotics police testified that an informant alerted them that the 26-year-old defendant is a member of a notorious drug gang.

“The informant alerted us that the defendants possessed a huge quantity of drug pills. Primary interrogations revealed that the 26-year-old was present in his vehicle in Abu Hail. As part of a sting operation, a drug team monitored the defendant, who was driving a car with a Saudi number plate … he reached a sandy area behind one of the metro stations and we stopped at a distance watching him. Then the 31-year-old arrived in another car … he stepped out of his car and went to speak with his countryman. Few minutes later, we raided the two cars and apprehended the duo. We seized 10 bags full of amphetamine pills in the back seat. During questioning the two accused alleged that they had been cooperating with a Saudi person based in their country. The 26-year-old accused said his countryman tasked him to collect the pills from another person in Dubai and that his share of promoting those substances was Dh881,000,” the major testified.

The primary ruling remains subject to appeal within 15 days.