Big haul of Captagon pills seized at Saudi border

Saudi customs officers have foiled two attempts to smuggle in more than 99,000 Captagon pills into the kingdom.

In the first case, the officers found 94,978 pills concealed inside plastic bags placed next to other food stuff in a car coming through the Halat Ammar crossing point in the north.

Despite the attempt to hide the pills, the officers were able to find them and arrest the driver, Saudi daily Okaz reported on Wednesday.

In the second case, the officers found 4,050 pills hidden by a driver coming into the kingdom.

The smuggler taped the small bags containing the drugs to his body and wore dark clothes to enforce the concealment.

However, he was spotted by the officers and arrested.

Saudi media on Tuesday reported that customs officers were able to thwart an attempt to smuggle into the Kingdom more than seven million Captagon pills and other contraband items from Egypt.

A spokesperson for the Interior Ministry was quoted as saying that five smugglers were arrested in connection with the operation.

Saudi officers have to be particularly vigilant in their relentless battle against incredible ruses to smuggle weapons, explosives, alcohol, birds, animals, and in some instances people through the kingdom's borders.

In October, officers foiled an attempt to smuggle a woman into the country in a van through the King Fahad Causeway linking Saudi Arabia with Bahrain.

The woman, a foreigner, was reportedly hiding under the third row of seats and covered by an abaya.

However, the customs officer discovered her and referred her and the driver to the police for legal action.

The nationalities of the woman and the driver and the reasons for the smuggling were not announced by the authorities.

The 25-kilometre causeway opened on November 26, 1986 as the first terrestrial link between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia is regularly used by thousands of vehicles and passengers, mainly Saudis, particularly over the weekend.

Under the formal procedures adopted at the causeway, customs officers in the destination country inspect the vehicles before allowing them to move on.

In January, the Saudi authorities foiled an attempt to smuggle a foreign woman into the country by hiding her inside a car.

The woman was reportedly “concealed” under a pile of clothes behind the front seats of the car.

In June 2013, an attempt to smuggle a European woman into Saudi Arabia was foiled by local customs officers.

The woman whose nationality was not revealed did not have a passport and was hiding under a large carpet and a small wooden table on the Pajero floor mats.

The woman was discovered as the customs inspected the car driven from Bahrain by a British national.

In May 2015, Saudi Arabia foiled an attempt to smuggle RDX — a highly explosive material — and detonators intended to be used in the kingdom.

The Saudi security men had doubts about the two men driving into Saudi Arabia and decided to conduct a more thorough search of their car.

The inspection yielded 14 bags of carefully hidden inside the back seats of the car. Officials said that 11 bags contained more than 30 kilos of the RDX and two bags had 50 blasting caps. The last bag had a six-metre detonator cord.

In March 2015, Bahraini authorities said that they seized bomb-making material on a bus coming from Iraq via Saudi Arabia with 55 passengers on-board, mostly women and children.

source: GULF NEWS