DUBAI // Sixteen kilograms of cocaine has been seized during operations to bust eight smugglers.
The drug was found in the lining of handbags, disguised as buttons and hidden in underwear.
Eight suspects, including two Asian women and a South American man, were mostly heading for African countries, with one travelling to Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Dubai Police coordinated with drug squads and agencies worldwide for the operations, carried out over the past few months.
Appreciation letters have come from Kenya, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Angola, via US liaison officers in Dubai, said the director of the Anti-Narcotics Department, Maj Gen Abdul Jalil Al Assmawi.
A woman on her way to Angola stashed 8.8kg of cocaine in the lining of a number of handbags. Another woman was arrested in Karachi, Pakistan, with 1.9kg of the drug in her luggage.
Thanks to a tip from Dubai Police, authorities at Lagos Airport arrested an African smuggling 1.4kg of cocaine shaped into buttons.
Two other Africans were detained at Lagos Airport. The first had stashed 1.18kg in a wooden jewellery box and the other had 18 cocaine capsules in his stomach.
Two others arrested in Nairobi, Kenya, had swallowed 28 and 26 capsules of cocaine, respectively.
In Dhaka, Bangladesh, a tip-off from Dubai Police led to the arrest of a South American man found in a hotel with 2kg of cocaine.
Maj Gen Al Assmawi said an Asian woman arriving at Dubai Airport from Brazil had 1.1kg of cocaine in her underwear.
newsdesk@thenational.ae
