‘Drug, weapons dealer apprehended in Amman’

AMMAN — Anti-Narcotics Department (AND) agents on Thursday announced the arrest of a 34-year-old drug and weapons dealer in a raid in the capital earlier this week.

The suspect, a Jordanian, was arrested in a “clean and special operation by our agents after being monitored for a short period”, a senior AND official said.

The official told The Jordan Times that the suspect had previous a criminal record related to dealing with illegal narcotics and “such individuals remain on our radar all the time.”

“We monitored the suspect for a while and discovered that he was still dealing with illegal drugs and weapons,” the official explained.

Last week, the official added, a special AND unit raided the suspect’s house in an Amman neighbourhood and arrested him without any major incident.

A search of his home yielded several illegal drugs, including 15,000 illegal pills, five kilogrammes of marijuana, and three kilogrammes of hashish, according to a statement issued by the Public Security Department (PSD).

AND agents also found 10 pistols and pump action guns, the PSD statement added.

The suspect was referred to the State Security Court prosecutor for questioning and indictment.

Earlier this year, AND Director Brig. Gen. Sami  Askar said the department dealt with 7,713 illegal narcotic cases, including 712 cases of drug trafficking between May 2013 and May this year.

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 illegal drug pills.

According to AND officials, the number of drug addicts in Jordan in 2012 constituted less than 1 per cent of the population, estimated at over 6 million.