Regional unrest making drug smugglers ‘more creative’ — AND

AMMAN — The Anti-Narcotics Department (AND) on Thursday said the Syrian conflict, the refugee crisis and turmoil in surrounding countries are to blame for the new illicit drug smuggling methods the Kingdom has been witnessing over the past four years.

“We have been witnessing strange and creative methods of smuggling illicit drugs, mainly since the start of the Syrian conflict and the turmoil in several countries, and this has also become a problem among some refugees,” a senior AND official said.

The official was referring to recent reported methods whereby smugglers, mostly non-Jordanians, reportedly resorted to using sheep, car tyres, biscuit packets, packages of sweets, olives, large marble blocks and children’s beds, to hide and attempt to smuggle illegal narcotics.

The official said the department is constantly following up on the latest methods of smuggling and taking “all leads and tips very seriously”. 

“We are an intelligence body and we have our own sources and agents who are following up on leads and analysing information on a 24-hour basis,” he added.

The official added that agents work on complicated and difficult cases “sometimes for over two months to arrest suspects and bring them to justice”.

In a lecture earlier this week, Deputy Public Security Department Director for Criminal Investigation Affairs Maj. Gen. Tahsin Momani said 5,490 drug cases were registered in the first six months of 2015, 468 of which were related to trafficking, 36 related to addiction and 4,986 related to possession.

Senior drug officials disclosed figures last year stating that between May 31, 2013 and the end of May 2014, the department dealt with 7,713 illegal narcotic cases, including 712 cases of drug trafficking.

The number of arrested individuals during that period was 10,792, including 1,296 who are non-Jordanians, according to the figures.

The amount of seized illegal narcotics during the same period is as follows: 664kg of hashish; 6,719kg of marijuana; 2,466,918 Captagon pills; 331kg of cocaine; 219kg of heroin, 24kg of opium and 43,107,011 pills of various illegal drugs.

Most of the seized drugs, according to AND figures, were destined to neighbouring countries such as Saudi Arabia, Israel, Lebanon and Egypt.

The majority of the seized illegal narcotics are not for local consumption; they are destined for neighbouring countries such as illegal pills, which are worth between JD7 to JD10 per pill there, a senior AND official told The Jordan Times in a recent interview.