25 September 2012 | last updated at 12:34AM
Foreign and local drug rings link up
By ELIZABETH ZACHARIAH | [email protected]
SYNDICATES: Malaysians, Iranians and a Turk held in two drug busts
Federal Narcotics Criminal Investigation Department director Datuk Noor Rashid Ibrahim examining the seized Eramin 5 pills in Bukit Aman, Kuala Lumpur. Pic by Nik Hariff Hassan
KUALA LUMPUR: INTERNATIONAL drug syndicates are linking up with their local counterparts here to process and smuggle the drugs out of the country.
Federal Narcotics Criminal Investigation Department director Datuk Noor Rashid Ibrahim said Malaysia had become a transit point for global and local drug syndicates to link up, after which these drugs were moved around this region.
"They are being helped by local drug syndicates to do this," he said in Bukit Aman yesterday.
Noor Rashid said the possible link-up surfaced when police busted two local syndicates recently with the arrest of seven foreigners and two Malaysians, plus the seizure of drugs worth RM11 million.
In the first case, an Iranian man was detained after police stopped his Mercedes Benz in Mont Kiara at 7.30pm on Friday. They found two plastic bags of 2.02kg syabu with him. Following the arrest, police conducted simultaneous raids at several locations in the Klang Valley the same night.
The raids saw them nab three more Iranians at two luxury condominiums in Jalan Ampang and Petaling Jaya, which had been converted to syabu-processing mini laboratories. Police seized 1.335kg of drugs in powder and liquid forms as well as chemicals and processing equipments.
Two other Iranians and a Turk were also picked up in Jalan Tun Razak and Jalan Petaling during the raids. In the second case two days later, police stopped two cars at Km14 of the Kuala Lumpur-Rawang road at 6.15pm and found 8,000 Eramin 5 pills in several sacks. They pills were hidden under fish food pellets in the sack to prevent detection.
Later, at 7.45pm the same day, police raided a shop house in U5, Shah Alam, where they found another 520,000 Eramin 5 pills in 65 sacks. The same tactic of using fish food pellets was used to prevent detection. Noor Rashid said the pills were believed to have been smuggled into Malaysia for the local market.
"We have seized three cars, including a Mercedes SLK 350, laptops, jewellery, hand phones and RM1,300 in local and foreign currencies, so far.
He said the suspects, aged between 24 and 55, were being held under the Dangerous Drugs Act for drug trafficking.
