Dubai: Three men are challenging the three-year jail terms imposed on them after they were found to be in possession of 3.5 million amphetamine pills when drug enforcement teams busted them in a sting operation near a football club.

In August, the Dubai Court of First Instance jailed the trio, two Lebanese brothers and an Egyptian, to three years each and fined them Dh50,000 each on charges of possessing and promoting mind-affecting substances.

The trio have appealed against the primary judgement before the Dubai Appeal Court and are expected to enter their pleas and seek to have their punishments overturned when the trial takes place next month.

According to the primary ruling, the defendants were to be deported after serving their punishments.

Acting on a tip-off, drug enforcement officers commissioned an informant to contact the defendants and set up a meeting with them to collect the pills in February.

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

The Lebanese defendant and the informant met in a parking lot of the hypermarket’s main gate where they chatted for a while before leaving the place.

Drug enforcement teams were stationed in the vicinity to monitor the informant and the suspect as they struck the deal.

After meeting the informant, the 42-year-old Lebanese went towards the accommodation of the staff working at the football club and disappeared for a while before returning.

The informant then received a voice message on WhatsApp from the suspect asking to meet him at the place where they had met earlier while the former was with a drug enforcement officer and police teams.

The informant met the 42-year-old defendant and drove to the nearby accommodation and then into the parking lot. The Lebanese had also parked his car in the same parking lot in which his 49-year-old brother and the Egyptian defendant were waiting.

Drug enforcement officers, thereafter, swung into action and apprehended the trio while the informant was moving the banned pills to his car.

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

The three accused pleaded not guilty when they appeared before the primary court.

An anti-narcotics police officer testified that the trio were kept under strict observation while they were finalising the deal with the informant. More than three million pills that were stacked in a number of bags were seized during the sting operation, the officer said.