Muscat: The drug enforcement department of Oman says it is continuing its crackdown on narcotics traders and users in the country.
The police said they caught two citizens using heroin and other psychotropic drugs, while an Omani couple found themselves jailed for using banned drugs for the purpose of becoming intoxicated.
A spokesman for the Royal Oman Police (ROP) drug enforcement department said the department received information that a citizen and his wife were in possession of drugs for their own use and for sale.
Police said they kept the couple under surveillance for a few days before officers from Al Khodh police station in Muscat caught the husband allegedly trying to sell the drugs.
Police declined to identify the man.
The ROP spokesman said the man's wife then came to the police station after she heard about her husband's detention.
There she was searched and detained for having morphine, which is a banned substance, in her possession.
Police alleged that the wife had brought morphine to the station to smuggle it to her husband.
In a separate case, a police spokesman said another Omani was jailed on charges of possessing heroin, psychotropic tablets and devices for using drugs, including syringes.
The accused had come to the attention of police and detained after being involved in a minor road accident in the Al Khuwair district of Muscat.
Police said they found that the accused was in possession of heroin, psychotropic tablets and syringes when they went to investigate the road crash.
The accused was sent to hospital where it was proven that the driver was under the influence of drugs, the police said.
The Royal Oman Police said they foiled a young Omani's bid to rob a house in Al Khodh.
A police spokesman said the young Omani was attempting to rob the house to find money to buy drugs.
He was taken into police custody and charged with possessing psychotropic tablets and a syringe.
Police said the incidence of homes being broken into had increased recently in Muscat and in most cases drug addicts or alcoholics were involved in a bid to find money to buy drugs or alcohol.
A source said that police were also finding an increasing number of people — especially from Pakistan — attempting to smuggle drugs through its airports.
A source said the police hospital regularly received airline passengers who had tried to smuggle neatly packed drugs into the country after swallowing them.
Last Thursday, a Pakistani was detained at the airport after an alleged attempt to smuggle morphine.
