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Okuni
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Wednesday November 17, 2010
Police bracing for spike in drug traffic
KUALA TERENGGANU: Law enforcers are bracing for a rise in drug trafficking during the year-end monsoon season. Terengganu police have learned that drug traffickers, in anticipation of several roads being closed because of possible floods, are planning to transport their supplies via other modes of transportation, including air.
The main smuggling point – Sungai Golok in Thailand – is expected to swell, making it difficult for “suppliers” to wade through the river with the drug consignments. State narcotics chief Supt Roslan Abdul Wahid said the price of drugs would triple during the monsoon season.
“And because of the lucrative returns, traffickers are willing to risk smuggling in the supplies during the monsoon period,” he said here yesterday. For instance, a vial of Grade 4 heroin that was popular among addicts could cost up to RM1,500 during the monsoon period, compared to RM500 on regular days.
Supt Roslan said traffickers realised that methamphetamine-type pills were scarce and much sought after during the rainy days. To deal with the problem, he said the police had stepped up vigilance along alternative roads along the border as well as at the Sultan Mahmud International Airport, which traffickers might use due to road closures.
Supt Ruslan said the narcotics department would use tracker dogs from its K-9 unit at the airport to sniff out the drugs. In a related development, he said the police had crippled a major drug trafficking ring with the arrest of 28 members of the so-called Raja Pot syndicate here several months ago.
In a raid on the syndicate’s operations hub at Kampung Geluguh in Binjai Rendah, Marang, the police seized 20 ampoules (plastic bulbs containing solutions for hypodermic injection) of heroin with a street value of RM30,000. The culprits were liable to face the mandatory death sentence upon conviction. Supt Roslan said between Jan 1 and Nov 14, 408 traffickers had been arrested and 73 of them would face the gallows if convicted.
