Smuggler caught with 5 kg Shabu at Bahrain airport gets jail term

TDT | Manama                                                            

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

A man caught with around 5 kilogrammes of shabu from the Bahrain International Airport and sentenced to 5 years in prison has had his appeal rejected by the High Appeals Court. Upholding the sentence issued by a trial court, judges also ordered his deportation after completing the jail term.

Court files say airport customs arrested the man with 4.8 kilograms of shabu hidden inside his baggage. Customs officers spotted the man, with suspicious behaviour, during check-out procedures.

After initial examinations, officers moved him to the red lane meant for detailed checks. Cops then started looking for hidden spaces inside his baggage and found several spots filled with a drug known as shabu. In total, all of the drugs thus recovered weighed 4.8 kilograms. When confronted the man with evidence, the man, officers told the court, also confessed to his crimes. He also confessed that the drugs were for circulation inside the country to make quick money.

His revelation also exposed a network engaged in smuggling drugs into the Kingdom. The man in custody, officers said, is just one of the links of that crime syndicate. Public Prosecution had charged the man with smuggling drugs to sell them in the Kingdom.

Bahrain customs have thwarted several attempts like this recently to smuggle drugs and narcotics into the Kingdom. The most common methods employed are body packing -- swallowing large volumes of drugs to hide them in the gastrointestinal tract and body pushing -- placing drug packages or paraphernalia in the rectum. In a recent incident, cops arrested a man carrying 75 capsules stuffed with drugs in his stomach and another with 100 capsules. Both were arrested at the Bahrain International Airport and now serving their time in a Bahrain jail.