Jordanian security forces arrested 20 drug dealers across the kingdom in one day, a police spokesman said, as authorities increase efforts to curb a booming narcotics trade flowing mainly from southern Syria.
Border operations have been stepped up in the past few months to disrupt flows of the stimulant pill known as Captagon and other drugs from areas controlled by the Syrian military and pro-Iranian militias, and numerous arrests have been made to dismantle drug networks in Jordan.
“Anti-narcotics personnel mounted in the last 24 hours security operations against drug merchants and marketers,” an Internal Security Directorate spokesman said on Wednesday.
He said all 20 men who were arrested were referred to the State Security Court, a tribunal mostly comprising military judges, the official news agency reported. It deals with terrorism, political crimes and other threats deemed too grave or sensitive to be handled by Jordan's civil legal system.
In pictures: the Middle East's war on drugs
Regional security officials say Saudi Arabia is the main market for Captagon pills, which are mostly manufactured south of Damascus and smuggled across the 360km border between Jordan and Syria, with 10 to 20 per cent of the pills consumed in Jordan.
Hashish produced in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley and crystal methamphetamine — a drug known to cause psychological problems and heart damage ― are also part of the drug flows.
But the most profitable contraband is Captagon, with a pill costing cents to produce then reportedly sold on the market for up to $15.
The spokesman said one of the 20 men was seized in the impoverished Zarqa area east of Amman and that he had been sentenced in absentia for a 15-year jail term on drug charges.
Another five were arrested in the northern Badia region and in the Mafraq governorate, which both border Syria. One was apprehended while he was on a drug run and 12,000 Captagon pills were found in the spare tyre of the car he was using, the spokesman said.
Weeks of “intelligence work” in the rural area of Ajloun, north-west of Amman, resulted in the arrest of a “dangerous suspect” wanted in 21 drug cases and for “terrorising citizens”.
“He resisted arrest and had upon him a firearm and a quantity of drugs,” the spokesman said.
Two traffickers were apprehended in central Amman. They were carrying four pouches of hashish and an unspecified quantity of “banned pills”.
Another man carrying “large quantities of drugs” was intercepted in the southern governorate of Karak.
In the nearby governorate of Aqaba, Jordan's only outlet to the sea, six traffickers were seized in a joint operation between the Jordanian gendarmerie, a security agency responsible for maintaining domestic order, and the police.
They were carrying “various quantities of these deadly substances, ready for sale,” the spokesman said.
Although some drugs flow into Jordan from Egypt through the Red Sea, the border with Syria has become the main conduit for trade since Syrian regime forces retook the area from rebels in 2018 after a deal between Russia, the US and Israel.
Jordan says pro-Iranian militias in southern Syria and the Syrian military are behind the rise in drug smuggling in the past four years.
The 2018 agreement was supposed to keep Lebanon's Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups away from the border.
This week Jordanian border forces fired on armed infiltrators and were believed to have killed four of them as they were smuggling drugs from Syria.
A military official said one of the infiltrators was wounded and the rest “fled to the Syrian interior”.
ESSENTIALS
The flights
Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh via Yangon from Dh2,700 return including taxes. Cambodia Bayon Airlines and Cambodia Angkor Air offer return flights from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap from Dh250 return including taxes. The flight takes about 45 minutes.
The hotels
Rooms at the Raffles Le Royal in Phnom Penh cost from $225 (Dh826) per night including taxes. Rooms at the Grand Hotel d'Angkor cost from $261 (Dh960) per night including taxes.
The tours
A cyclo architecture tour of Phnom Penh costs from $20 (Dh75) per person for about three hours, with Khmer Architecture Tours. Tailor-made tours of all of Cambodia, or sites like Angkor alone, can be arranged by About Asia Travel. Emirates Holidays also offers packages.
Brief scores:
Toss: Northern Warriors, elected to field first
Bengal Tigers 130-1 (10 ov)
Roy 60 not out, Rutherford 47 not out
Northern Warriors 94-7 (10 ov)
Simmons 44; Yamin 4-4
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How to watch Ireland v Pakistan in UAE
When: The one-off Test starts on Friday, May 11
What time: Each day’s play is scheduled to start at 2pm UAE time.
TV: The match will be broadcast on OSN Sports Cricket HD. Subscribers to the channel can also stream the action live on OSN Play.
How Tesla’s price correction has hit fund managers
Investing in disruptive technology can be a bumpy ride, as investors in Tesla were reminded on Friday, when its stock dropped 7.5 per cent in early trading to $575.
It recovered slightly but still ended the week 15 per cent lower and is down a third from its all-time high of $883 on January 26. The electric car maker’s market cap fell from $834 billion to about $567bn in that time, a drop of an astonishing $267bn, and a blow for those who bought Tesla stock late.
The collapse also hit fund managers that have gone big on Tesla, notably the UK-based Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust and Cathie Wood’s ARK Innovation ETF.
Tesla is the top holding in both funds, making up a hefty 10 per cent of total assets under management. Both funds have fallen by a quarter in the past month.
Matt Weller, global head of market research at GAIN Capital, recently warned that Tesla founder Elon Musk had “flown a bit too close to the sun”, after getting carried away by investing $1.5bn of the company’s money in Bitcoin.
He also predicted Tesla’s sales could struggle as traditional auto manufacturers ramp up electric car production, destroying its first mover advantage.
AJ Bell’s Russ Mould warns that many investors buy tech stocks when earnings forecasts are rising, almost regardless of valuation. “When it works, it really works. But when it goes wrong, elevated valuations leave little or no downside protection.”
A Tesla correction was probably baked in after last year’s astonishing share price surge, and many investors will see this as an opportunity to load up at a reduced price.
Dramatic swings are to be expected when investing in disruptive technology, as Ms Wood at ARK makes clear.
Every week, she sends subscribers a commentary listing “stocks in our strategies that have appreciated or dropped more than 15 per cent in a day” during the week.
Her latest commentary, issued on Friday, showed seven stocks displaying extreme volatility, led by ExOne, a leader in binder jetting 3D printing technology. It jumped 24 per cent, boosted by news that fellow 3D printing specialist Stratasys had beaten fourth-quarter revenues and earnings expectations, seen as good news for the sector.
By contrast, computational drug and material discovery company Schrödinger fell 27 per cent after quarterly and full-year results showed its core software sales and drug development pipeline slowing.
Despite that setback, Ms Wood remains positive, arguing that its “medicinal chemistry platform offers a powerful and unique view into chemical space”.
In her weekly video view, she remains bullish, stating that: “We are on the right side of change, and disruptive innovation is going to deliver exponential growth trajectories for many of our companies, in fact, most of them.”
Ms Wood remains committed to Tesla as she expects global electric car sales to compound at an average annual rate of 82 per cent for the next five years.
She said these are so “enormous that some people find them unbelievable”, and argues that this scepticism, especially among institutional investors, “festers” and creates a great opportunity for ARK.
Only you can decide whether you are a believer or a festering sceptic. If it’s the former, then buckle up.
Palestine and Israel - live updates
NBA Finals results
Game 1: Warriors 124, Cavaliers 114
Game 2: Warriors 122, Cavaliers 103
Game 3: Cavaliers 102, Warriors 110
Game 4: In Cleveland, Sunday (Monday morning UAE)
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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