GULFNARCOTICS/ HUGE DRUG HAULS IN UAE AS CONTROLS TIGHTEN

ABU DHABI : The oilrich
United Arab Emirates (UAE) has stepped up its war against drug
trafficking, smashing several networks of Arab and Asian
traffickers.

Security experts here believe the UAE, a major oil producer, is
vulnerable to narcotictrafficking because of its proximity to
drugproducing states in Asia, the presence of large foreign
communities and its long, porous 500 kilometer coastline.

They say a crackdown on traffickers in Iran, across the Gulf
waters from the UAE, is also to blame as smugglers were forced to
find new routes to their destinations in Europe and North
America.

Last week, the Dubai police chief Major General Dhahi Khalfan
Tamim said Mandrax pills with a street value of around $25 million
were netted in raids on illegal factories in the sheikhdoms of
Dubai and Umm AlQaiwain.

A gang of six Indians and six Pakistanis was preparing to sell
locally and export the pills, which are banned under antidrugs
laws, the police said.

Dubai police also announced the arrest of 16 men in eight
separate narcotics cases and the confiscation of hundreds of
kilograms of hashish with an estimated street value of $5 million.

"The price of hashish has markedly increased following the arrest
of all these drug dealers and this proves that the supply of
hashish has dropped after the arrest of the accused who
represented the bulk of the existing drugtrade," said Brigadier
Sharaf AlDin Hussein, director of Dubai Criminal Investigation
Department.

On June 28, the UAE authorities announced the arrest of another
five men on charges of attempting to smuggle millions of
hallucinatory tablets into Dubai and Ajman.

The five accused, three Gulf Arab nationals, an Iranian, and a
Syrian, were arrested after a furniture consignment was seized by
the Dubai Customs Department. Some 50 kilograms of Capatagon
tablets were found hidden between the plywood panels of
bedroom furniture, which was part of the consignment.

Over the last two months, 8 kilograms of pure heroin worth
$270,000 have been intercepted at Dubai airport. The UAE is a
federation of seven emirates, which include Abu Dhabi, Dubai,
Sharjah, Umm AlQaiwain, Ajman, Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah.

The UAE is very tough with drug smugglers, and introduced the
death penalty for trafficking in 1995 as a deterrent. But more than
10 tons of hashish, cocaine, heroin, opium and other drugs have
been seized over the past four months alone.

The UAE Ministry of Interior and the Health Ministry are
currently considering a law to regulate the use of basic chemical
substances to ensure they are not used to manufacture illegal
drugs.

Police records show that most of the smuggled drugs over the
past decade came by sea from neighboring Iran, Pakistan and
other Asian countries.

Apart from the surge in trafficking, officials have been alarmed by
what they call the spread of drug addiction among the local
people. Several UAE men were reported to have died from
overdoses in the past few years.

The UAE and its partners in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman are facing a
growing threat from drug traffickers who are diversifying their
supply routes and taking advantage of the growing number of
airports in the region.

Abu Dhabi and Dubai, the wealthiest two emirates in the country,
and the cities of Riyadh and Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, through
which millions of pilgrims to Islam's holiest shrines transit, are
now on the international drug route.

International antidrugs experts say a growing quantity of
cannabis produced in Asia is shipped by container through the
Suez Canal. The containers quite often transit through free trade
zones in Dubai and elsewhere in the Arabian peninsula.

The chemicals needed to turn morphine into heroin or make
metamphetamines also pass through the UAE, according to the
International Narcotics Control Board, a U.N agency based in
Vienna.

Security officials here say that in major international trading
hubs
like Dubai, Singapore or Hong Kong, there are always
intermediaries who can falsify ship manifests.

Last week, Iran burned 50 tons of illegal drugs seized in 1996
which had a street value of $670,000. Iran lies on a key transit
route for drugs being smuggled from Afghanistan and Pakistan to
European and Middle East markets.

The Islamic republic has imposed stiff punishments in a bid to
crack down on the narcotics trade. According to Iranian law,
possession of 5 kilograms of opium or 30 grams of heroin is
punishable by death. More than 1,000 people have been executed
in drugrelated cases since the law took effect in 1989.

Iran has also fenced its borders with barbed wire and installed
hundreds of checkpoints and watchtowers to prevent infiltration,
spending an estimated $2 billion since 1979 in its fight against
drugs. Some 2,000 members of its security forces have been killed
in clashes with armed smugglers.

[Copyright 1997, Inter Press Service]