One of the biggest drug busts in the world seized by Dubai Police

Police apprehend three men in Dubai with more than 4.6 million pills of the amphetamine fenethylline, also known as Captagon, which has a street value of Dh115 million. Courtesy Dubai Police

DUBAI // Three men are under arrest and two are on the run after anti-narcotics police smashed a drug-smuggling gang and seized more than 4.6 million amphetamine pills worth Dh115 million.

“Globally this is one of the biggest busts of the year,” said Maj Gen Khamees Al Muzainah, chief of Dubai Police.

The gang were caught in a police sting on their way to deliver a shipment of fenethylline, a synthetic stimulant sold under the brand name Captagon.

The three arrested gang members – a manager with a Sharjah company, a businessman in Ras Al Khaimah and a driver in Sharjah – are all from the same Arab country.

All three have been charged with possession of narcotics and psychotropic substances with intent to distribute and export. The company manager has also been charged with consuming amphetamines after testing positive.

The two men still at large are the gang leader, who funded the smuggling operation and paid for the storage of the pills, and the middleman between the leader and the gang in the UAE. They are believed to be in different neighbouring Arab countries.

The anti-narcotics division of Dubai police set up Operation Nine Ball, named after a billiard hall in Damascus Road in Al Qusais that was the gang’s favourite meeting spot, after learning that the men had stored large quantities of illegal drugs in Al Aweer.

A task force was established under the director of central intelligence at Dubai Police, who put together the sting operation that netted the gang.

Task force officers watched as the RAK businessman and the driver loaded a vehicle with the amphetamines, which they planned to deliver to a buyer who was set up by the police.

The vehicle was stopped near Damascus Road and the two men were detained. The Sharjah company manager was arrested in a separate operation in a building on Port Saeed road.

The RAK businessman has confessed to storing the pills, which the gang obtained three months before their arrest in October through three land shipments ordered by the gang leader. He was paid Dh5,000 for each bag of pills he was storing.

Police found 14 travel bags, five metal containers and numerous plastic bags full of pills. Scales and other tools to package the drugs were also seized.

“According to data from the Ministry of Interior, this is the biggest amount of amphetamines ever seized in any single operation in the UAE,” said Gen Al Muzainah.

“The pills were most likely headed out of the country as there is very limited demand for Captagon in the UAE. There is high demand for it in other countries.”

Gen Al Muzainah thanked the RAK and Sharjah Police, who conducted searches of the gang’s homes, for their cooperation.

“Every day people come up with new methods of smuggling. We are in a race with the smugglers,” he said.

“If drugs enter the country it doesn’t mean that our borders aren’t secure. Our security has two sides, border control and internal security.”

He said the UAE did not produce narcotics, and there were no illegal drug laboratories.