Drug smuggling attempts by land, air thwarted; eight suspects arrested

AMMAN — Anti-Narcotics Department (AND) personnel have thwarted attempts to smuggle large amounts of narcotics by land and air, and have arrested suspected drug dealers in separate cases, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported on Monday. 

In one case, suspects prepared large amounts of narcotic pills to smuggle them abroad through a border crossing using a vehicle. 

Upon inspection of the vehicle, 500,000 narcotic pills were found hidden in secret compartments. 

A suspect involved in the case was arrested and an investigation is still under way, Petra reported. 

In another case, AND personnel received a tip-off about suspects also preparing large amounts of drugs to smuggle outside the Kingdom but were arrested during their attempt to cross the border using two vehicles. 

The two suspects were identified as holders of Arab nationalities, and they were in possession of around 76,000 narcotic pills.

In a third case, AND personnel at the Queen Alia International Airport detained three Arab suspects, whose luggage contained 110,000 narcotic pills hidden in gift bags. 

In another case, two suspects in Irbid, 80km north of Amman, were caught in a house where they were manufacturing synthetic cannabis (locally known as joker), making fake currency and storing stolen artefacts. 

AND personnel, in cooperation with the Irbid police, raided the house on Sunday. The suspects fired at the personnel, who returned fire before arresting one of the suspects. 

The other fled but was later arrested, and his firearm was seized. 

A search of the house yielded three firearms, 3kg of joker and chemicals used to manufacture it, in addition to counterfeit money, nine printers, two laptops, three cameras and 19 artefacts that were sent to the Department of Antiquities for authentication.