DUBAI: UAE customs has foiled 13,705 smuggling attempts in 2014, including a number of illicit items wild animals, fireworks and millions of dirhams in undeclared cash.
Details of the haul that also included drugs, tobacco and alcohol, are included in a Department of Finance report.
Land and sea border controls, where officials at the General Administration of Customs also stopped 75 illegal immigrants from entering Abu Dhabi. The car of a 26-year-old Arab driver crossing the border at Al Hili was stopped and searched and security officials found three Asian men and two African men hiding inside.
Mohammed Khadim Al Hameli, acting director general of the GAC, said better technology and security training was helping to catch traffickers.
Abu Dhabi Customs seized 34.7 kilograms of banned drugs and 26,344 narcotic pills last year. Almost half were found at the airport.
Seized narcotics included 26 kilos of cocaine from Brazil, as well as heroin, marijuana and narcotic pills.
A 30-year-old passenger on a flight from Asia was found to have 1.365kg of marijuana hidden in luggage.
When officials at Al Ghuwaifat stopped a 37-year-old Asian lorry driver, a search of a cabinet behind the radio in his cab uncovered four bags of 372 heroin capsules, weighing 3.084kg.
The checkpoint also accounted for 98 per cent of all diesel seizures in Abu Dhabi, with a total volume of 457 litres recovered. The same post stopped a 45-year-old Arab man with Dh1.5 million worth of undisclosed cash in a variety of GCC currencies, and a 26-year-old Arab man with seven caged cheetah cubs in his car.
Customs officers at Meyzad stopped 850 attempts to bring bootleg tobacco illegally into Abu Dhabi, and Madheef inspectors found a lorry filled with shoe boxes containing 1,124 illegal fireworks.
