“Hidden in Sweets and Toys: Major Drug Smuggling Plot Exposed at Airport”

The High Criminal Appeals Court has set December 29 to deliver its verdict in the appeal filed by an Asian couple who were previously sentenced by the First Instance Court to 15 years in prison and fined 5,000 Bahraini dinars each. The lower court had also ordered the confiscation of the seized items and their permanent deportation from Bahrain after convicting them of smuggling narcotic substances from an Asian country, cleverly concealed in empty food packaging such as candy, nuts, and children’s toys.

The Public Prosecution charged the couple with importing, possessing, and handling narcotic substances under circumstances prohibited by law.

Case details reveal that on July 8, 2025, a customs officer at Bahrain International Airport examined two suitcases arriving from an Asian country via a Gulf hub. The bags, belonging to the appellants, triggered suspicion when X-ray scans showed unusually dense shapes and abnormal color patterns. The officer marked the bags with an “X” for detailed inspection in the red channel.

A second customs officer conducting the red channel inspection discovered several herbal plant materials, later confirmed by laboratory analysis as 6.5452 kilograms of marijuana. The substances had been meticulously hidden inside empty food packages commonly used for sweets, nuts, and children’s toys.

The Anti-Narcotics Directorate was immediately notified. Officers arrived at the airport, took custody of the suspects and the seized materials, and interrogated the couple. The pair admitted that they had received the bags from a person in an Asian country, acting on instructions from another individual, with the intention of delivering them to someone in Bahrain for distribution.

Further investigations uncovered that the couple was part of an organized drug distribution network led by an unidentified individual in an Asian country. Authorities concluded that the couple knowingly brought the narcotics into Bahrain with the intent to distribute them for financial gain.