DUBAI // Marijuana hidden in cakes was one ploy used to smuggle drugs, airport police say.
Two sisters in their 20s were caught last August when they arrived at Dubai International Airport on a flight from Spain.
They thought the Dubai Customs officials would not find the 10 hash brownies on them.
The pair told investigators that they brought the drugs into the UAE for personal use. A urine test showed the two of them had taken the drug recently, and they were detained.
In a separate case at the airport, a Pakistani woman with more than 11,000 Xanax pills taped to her torso was arrested last June.
She said a dealer in Pakistan told her he would pay her 100,000 rupees (Dh3,500) to smuggle them to Dubai, prosecutors said.
In another case, a Nigerian woman was arrested at Dubai airport for trying to smuggle more than 5 kilograms of marijuana last December. She was sentenced to 10 years in jail.
“Many drug gangs in Asia and Africa take advantage of people’s situations, such as a low level of awareness of laws in some cases and economic hardship in others,” said Ahmed Saif, a Dubai prosecutor.
“They use them as mules because they believe security officers at the airport would doubt that women, children, or even families would try to smuggle drugs. They target women with minors, paying them what would be a lot of money in their home country.”
He said airport authorities remained vigilant to the drug gangs’ smuggling efforts.
nalramahi@thenational.ae
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Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
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Install an air filter in your home.
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
THE SPECS
Engine: 6.75-litre twin-turbocharged V12 petrol engine
Power: 420kW
Torque: 780Nm
Transmission: 8-speed automatic
Price: From Dh1,350,000
On sale: Available for preorder now
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013