Saudi woman and driver caught smuggling liquor

A Saudi woman and her driver were caught while trying to smuggle more than 1500 bottles of liquor from Bahrain in a boat towed by their vehicle.

Saudi media said the woman was accompanied by an Asian driver in a Saudi registered 4X4 vehicle that was entering Saudi Arabia, coming from Bahrain through King Fahad Causeway.

Quoting reliable sources, Saudi daily Al Riyadh reported that “1504 bottles were stashed in the bottom of the 8-metre boat.”

The paper said the smuggling attempt was foiled when the boat went through the customs scanners as a routine inspection procedure for towed vehicles crossing the causeway into the kingdom.

“Having a woman in a vehicle that is towing a trailer might have given the smugglers the impression that it won’t be scanned as the rest of the towed vehicles coming from Bahrain. This alerted the customs personnel, who insisted on scanning the boat, and eventually detected and seized the shipment before they referred the woman and her driver to the concerned authorities,” the source told the Saudi journal.

As reported earlier, liquor smuggling attempts into Saudi Arabia have been repeatedly reported at the Saudi side of King Fahad Causeway.

Individuals were caught hiding liquor between their personal belongings, in spare fuel tanks, secret special boxes that are made for this purpose and even taping them to their bodies.

The latest foiled liquor smuggling attempt to be officially announced was during the last week of January, when Saudi authorities said it had detected 430 bottles and 83 litres of liquour stashed in two vehicles that were on their way back from Bahrain.