18 detained on drug, car theft charges in dawn raid

AMMAN — Police on Thursday announced the arrest of 18 Jordanians on charges related to illegal narcotics and car thefts in raids on four homes in an Amman neighbourhood.

The dawn raids on Thursday occurred smoothly and without any major incidents, a senior Anti-Narcotics Department (AND) official said.

“We used the surprise element in the raid on the four homes that belonged to the suspects, who are brothers or relatives, and this prevented any major incidents or casualties,” the AND official told The Jordan Times.

He added that two of the suspects attempted to escape but “we managed to corner and arrest them.”

The joint operation also included Gendarmerie forces, in addition to agents from the preventive security and criminal investigation departments, according to the AND official.

“Our agents have been monitoring the group for a while and the force decided to conduct the raid at dawn so that we would not face any resistance,” he added.

Agents found seven stolen vehicles, dozens of stolen licence plates, marijuana seedlings, four automatic rifles, weapons and a large number of cell phones, according to a statement released by the Public Security Department (PSD).

Fifteen of the 18 arrested suspects were wanted on various charges including car theft, and weapons and drug trafficking, the PSD statement added.

Last year, AND Director Brig. Gen. Sami Askar said the department dealt with 7,713 cases involving illegal narcotics, including 712 cases of drug trafficking, between May 2013 and May 2014. A total of 10,792 individuals were arrested during this period, 1,296 of them non-Jordanians, according to Askar.

Illegal narcotics seized during the same period comprised 664 kilogrammes of hashish, 6,719 kilos of marijuana, 2,466,918 Captagon pills, 331 kilos of cocaine, 219 kilos of heroin, 24 kilos of opium and 43,107,011 other illegal drug pills.