DUBAI: Dubai Customs seized 80 heroin capsules and charged hefty fine of Dh50, 000 with 10 years jail. A customs inspector caught the 25-year-old Afghan visitor, M.A, after a special detecting device showed he was carrying the capsules inside his body at Dubai International Airport.
The Dubai Court of First Instance convicted M.A. of smuggling and possessing 960g of heroin with the intent to promote the drug in the UAE.
The accused confessed that he smuggled the drug in his intestines but denied the intent to promote it in Dubai.
“I smuggled it here for my personal use,” he contended before the court.
Presiding judge Fahd Al Shamsi said the accused will be deported following the completion of his punishment.
The customs inspector testified that he suspected something fishy when M.A. reached the arrival terminal.
“He arrived from his country sometime in the afternoon. I took him to a search room where I had him go through the special scanner. The results showed some strange objects inside his intestines. No banned substances were found with him or in his luggage upon searching. Then I accompanied him to the washroom where he extracted 33 capsules. When asked about the findings, he claimed he did know about the contents. He alleged that his countryman gave it to him and asked him to deliver it to someone in Dubai,” the inspector told prosecutors.
The primary ruling remains subject to appeal within 13 days.
