Anti-narcotics agents arrest five suspected drug traffickers

AMMAN — Anti-Narcotics Department (AND) agents on Tuesday announced that five people were arrested in the northern region over the past two weeks in connection with the attempted distribution and smuggling of illegal narcotics.

“We arrested five people, including two Arab nationals, in four separate operations without any major incidents,” a senior AND official told The Jordan Times.

In one incident, according to the official, agents in Irbid arrested two alleged drug dealers who had “90,000 pills in their vehicle that was intended for a neighbouring country”, the official said.

In another incident, special forces arrested two men after raiding a house they were hiding in, he added, noting that agents who searched the house found 10,000 Captagon pills and two kilogrammes of hashish.

In a third incident, a suspect was arrested at his home after AND received a tip that he “was in possession of illegal narcotics”, the official said.

The authorities are also searching for a man who allegedly stashed 160,000 Captagon pills in his vehicle with the intention of smuggling them abroad.

The illegal narcotics seized during the past week amounted to two kilogrammes of hashish, and 260,000 Captagon pills, according to a statement issued by the Public Security Department.

All the suspects were referred to the State Security Court prosecutor for questioning and indictment, according to the official.

He stressed that AND operations against drug smugglers are conducted 24 hours a day to abort “similar attempts to smuggle illegal drugs abroad or distribute them in the local market”.

“Most of the seized drugs are destined for a neighbouring country because the margin of profit is very high,” the official said, noting that the hashish was intended for local consumption.

Drug smugglers target rich countries because “one Captagon pill is worth at least JD7 in these states, while its market value in Jordan does not exceed JD1 per pill,” officials have previously said.

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 664kg of hashish, 6,719kg of marijuana, 2,466,918 Captagon pills, 331kg of cocaine, 219kg of heroin, 24kg of opium and 43,107,011 other illegal drug pills.