Interior Ministry eyes ‘new approach’ to combat drugs

AMMAN — Interior Minister Salameh Hammad on Monday said combating drug dealing and use is a top priority for his ministry, pledging to curb the phenomenon using a new approach.

Hammad made the remarks during a meeting with members of the Lower House’s National Coalition to discuss several local, regional and international issues, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

On Monday, personnel at the Mudawara customs centre on the border with Saudi Arabia foiled an attempt to smuggle 17,320 narcotic pills hidden inside a cooler on a bus, according to a Public Security Department statement (PSD).

On Sunday, the PSD said Anti-Narcotics Department (AND) personnel had foiled an attempt to smuggle drugs that were hidden in a package of sweets planned to be shipped out of the Kingdom.

Drug traffickers use various ways to smuggle narcotics, with AND agents foiling several attempts this year to smuggle drugs hidden inside items that would not raise the suspicion of the authorities.

Last month, AND officers aborted two attempts to smuggle half-a-million Captagon pills that were hidden in large marble blocks and children’s beds.

In April, AND agents arrested a suspect in the northern region of the Kingdom for allegedly hiding 37,000 Captagon pills inside olives that he intended to smuggle to a neighbouring country.

The suspect reportedly extracted the seeds of thousands of olives and replaced them with Captagon pills wrapped in small plastic bags, AND said.

Pills such as Captagon (fenethylline) are usually manufactured and transported from neighbouring countries in the north via Jordan to rich countries on the southern border.

Smugglers target rich countries because one Captagon pill there is worth around JD7, while its market value in Jordan does not exceed JD1 per pill, officials have previously told The Jordan Times.