Dubai: Police seized 51kg of opium worth over Dh2.5 million and arrested three people who were trying to sell it in the biggest opium trafficking operation in over 10 years.
Major General Abdul Jalil Mahdi, Director of Dubai Police's Anti-Narcotics Department, said the shipment arrived on a small ship and was hidden in the ship's machinery.
After receiving information about the shipment, an undercover policeman contacted the drug traders and agreed to buy the entire amount, and he met two of them at 10:45am on March 23 near a shopping centre in Mamzar.
The two traders, who were caught red-handed, confessed that they had a partner who smuggled the opium into the country. The trafficker was arrested in cooperation with Sharjah Police, Major General Mahdi said, adding that the man was wanted for other drug-related crimes.
Opium is the raw material from which morphine and heroine are derived, is also used in its raw form through inhaling opium smoke, placing a plug of it in the mouth and letting it dissolve, or preparing a brew out of opium seeds.
