Dubai customs seize 123,000 'deadly' pills

The shipment contained a controlled narcotic that can cause – among other symptoms – violent behaviour, hallucinations, insomnia, jaundice and death.

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DUBAI // A shipment of 123,000 potentially deadly tablets have been seized by Dubai Customs.

The shipment contained a controlled narcotic that can cause violent behaviour, apathy, nervousness, hyperactivity, hallucinations, dizziness, fever, insomnia, jaundice and death.

The drugs were heading to several European and Arab countries via Dubai, according to customs officials at the Dubai Airport Cargo Village.

"Customs inspectors at the Cargo Village suspected some consignments coming from two Arab countries and another African country. They recovered the narcotics and they were verified after health inspectors confirmed the drugs," said Omar Ahmed al Mehairy, the senior manager of the air cargo operations department at Dubai Customs.

"Dubai Customs has inventoried the goods, produced a seizure report on the incident and co-ordinated with the Regional Intelligence and Liaison Office (Rilo) over the passage of the shipment to its final destination in order to seize the involved parties in the smuggling attempt," he said.

The unnamed drugs, according to customs officials, were registered in the names of people in their destination countries.

In May last year, Dubai Customs seized 8,190 illegal medicine tablets bound for Dubai. The drugs were found hidden inside an electronics cargo shipment imported by a local company from an unidentified Asian country.

And in August, a Saudi Arabian man was arrested in Abu Dhabi and charged with trying to smuggle nearly 10,000 tablets of generic Captagon, a stimulant, into the country.