RIYADH: The Customs officials at King Khaled International Airport foiled attempts to smuggle in heroin into the Kingdom. In separate incidents, two smugglers were caught with a total of 1.288 kilograms of heroin in their intestines.
Sultan Al-Fuhaid, director general of Customs at the airport, said that Customs officials found the two men, who arrived in the Kingdom on board two different planes, in suspicious circumstances, and when their stomachs were subjected to ultrasound scanning, it was revealed that they were carrying drug pills. They had ingested the pills before making this trip to Riyadh.
The first man was caught smuggling 100 capsules of heroin with a weight of 811.5 grams while the second smuggler was carrying 477 grams of heroin. The smugglers were handed over to the concerned authorities to complete the legal procedures.
Al-Fuhaid said the Customs officials are exerting all out efforts to prevent smuggling of drugs into the Kingdom. “The Customs departments at all entry points into the Kingdom have been reinforced with more staff and highly advanced technological devices to foil the attempts of smugglers,” he said, while noting that the Customs officials have made remarkable achievements in combating smuggling of all kinds of drugs.
It is noteworthy that there were certain cases in which smugglers misused even the pilgrimage to smuggle in drugs into the Kingdom. Two months ago, customs officials at Halat Ammar check post on the border of Jordan, foiled an attempt to smuggle in 112,000 Captagon pills by a family of six coming to the Kingdom to perform Umrah. Three women pilgrims were caught with 53,000 drug pills hidden in their dresses while a total of 59,000 pills were found in the possession of three men.
