Cocaine smuggler gets 10 years in Dubai prison

Filipino hid more than six kilograms of the drug in a number of women's purses in his bag.

DUBAI // A man who confessed to smuggling more than six kilograms of cocaine but said he was only passing through Dubai has been jailed for 10 years.

Filipino R R, 38, was convicted of smuggling 6.4kg of the drug. He told Dubai Criminal Court last month: “I did but I was a transit passenger heading to Vietnam.”

Prosecutors said that on October 30 last year the defendant was arrested after arriving from Brazil.

“I was on duty in Terminal 3 at Dubai International Airport and when R R arrived I suspected he was carrying something banned, so I checked his bag and found a number of women’s purses inside, which, when I checked, had strange thickness to their bottom,” said Emirati policeman AA, 38.

The officer added that he cut open the purses and found the drugs. “He immediately confessed and said that he was carrying the drugs to Vietnam in return for US$3,000 (Dh11,020).”

He was fined Dh50,000 and will be deported after completing his sentence.