Printer cartridges filled with drugs 'exported'
By Jassmine Shadiqe
Drug traffickers are innovative. Not only are they exporting their "products" in coffee sachets, they are now hiding the drugs in printer cartridges and sending them through Poslaju and courier services. Several days after the New Straits Times revealed last week that police had smashed a syndicate which smuggled ketamine in coffee sachets, narcotics officers smashed another syndicate which hid the contraband in printer cartridges.
The latest success came after the arrest of a Malaysian in Hong Kong last Wednesday who collected two packages declared as computer printer cartridges at a courier service company.
When Hong Kong police opened the packages, they found that the cartridges had the carbon strips removed and replaced with ketamine, also known as "Special K".
Hong Kong police alerted their Malaysian counterparts. Over the next two days, Federal narcotics department officers raided several shoplots and a luxury service apartment.
Two men were arrested and 15 used printer cartridges and an undisclosed amount of ketamine seized.
Federal Narcotics Department director Datuk Najib Abdul Aziz said police believed the two syndicates were unaware of each other’s existence, although they used the same modus operandi.
Both sent their drugs through Poslaju or courier services to Taiwan, China and Hong Kong.
"Several packages are sent out every week. The syndicates are believed to have been operating for about five months. We are still trying to find out if there are more syndicate members out there," said Najib.
On June 4, the NST reported that six members of a syndicate had been arrested last month for smuggling drugs to Taiwan and Hong Kong in two-in-one coffee sachets.
The sachets would be opened and half its contents emptied and replaced with ketamine. It was then resealed and sent.
Police identified syndicate members through closed-circuit television footage taken from the courier service provider. This led them to an apartment in Sungai Besi on May 23, where three local men, a Hong Kong national, a Taiwanese man and a woman from China, were arrested.
"From the two syndicates, we seized 22kg of ketamine with a street value of RM2.2 million. We also seized more than RM300,000 in US and Taiwan dollars," said Najib.
He said police investigations revealed that the drugs were smuggled in from India and then "exported" to Taiwan, China and Hong Kong at three times the price.
The eight syndicate members would be charged with trafficking while the Malaysian arrested in Hong Kong will face charges there.
© Copyright 2004 The New Straits Times Press (M) Berhad. All rights reserved.
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BalasPadam