Bahraini man sentenced, Thai sisters deported in narcotics case

TDT | Manama

The High Criminal Court on Tuesday announced its final verdict in a case involving a Bahraini man and two Thai sisters, who together formed a gang to smuggle drugs into the Kingdom and sell them here. The Bahraini man was sentenced to five years of imprisonment and was fined BD3,000.

The court spared the Thai women from spending time in jail, considering their cooperation with the police, resulting in the arrest of the drug dealer. However, the sisters were ordered to be permanently deported.

The case was revealed in March this year, when one of the sisters was caught with quantities of narcotic substance in her possession while entering Bahrain coming from Thailand through Bahrain International Airport. Court files showed that customs officers at the airport suspected the woman and sent her for an intensified inspection.

There, X-rays showed that several bags of narcotics were hidden in electronic devices, such as massage machines, hairdryers and headsets. The woman confessed to the crime on the spot and agreed to cooperate with the police and lead them to her accomplices, who were her sister and the Bahraini defendant.

A team of policewomen accompanied the woman to arrest her sister, who arrived at the airport to pick her up. After confronting her with the crime and collected evidence, the sister also confessed and agreed to cooperate with the police. The sisters told them police that their Bahraini co-defendant would contact certain individuals in Thailand to buy methamphetamine and amphetamine from them.

One of the Thai women’s missions was to collect the drugs and traffic it into Bahrain. The other Thai woman would receive the electronic devices from her sister and deliver it to the Bahraini man, who takes the substance out of the devices, and then cuts, weighs, distributes and sells them to customers here.

The sisters led the police to their Bahraini accomplice and they all stood trial before the High Criminal Court for the charges of trafficking narcotics into the Kingdom, as well as illegal possession and peddling drugs.