Pakistani drug ring busted

SHAH ALAM: Under the guise of furniture dealers, a Pakistani drug syndicate smuggled heroin worth tens of millions of ringgit into the country in concealed compartments of wooden cupboards since last year.
On Saturday, after weeks of surveillance, Selangor police narcotics investigations department (NCID) caught up with them when six Pakistani men were arrested in two separate raids in Semenyih.
Their accomplices, comprising four Indonesian men and three local suspects, including a woman, were also arrested before police recovered 56kg of heroin worth RM8.4 million hidden in secret compartments of four cupboards imported from Pakistan.
Deputy Inspector-General of Police Datuk Seri Noor Rashid Ibrahim said police had to break down the cupboards which were among dozens of other furniture to recover the hidden heroin at a shophouse.
He said the syndicate had shipped in scores of furniture which were shipped in to Malaysia from Pakistan since last year and passed Customs checks undetected.
He said also seized from the suspects was a small amount of khat leaves, a banned stimulant that is chewed for effect.
Noor Rashid said the detained foreigners, who had valid travel documents on them, were also suppliers to Indonesian drug dealers.
He said the 13 detained suspects who are aged between 26 and 62 are under remand for investigations.
In an unrelated case near Jalan Bangsar last week, a 31-year-old perfume salesman with an aspiration to be a police officer was arrested after he was found in possession of a police uniform and other items.
Brickfields police chief ACP Muhammad Azlee Abdullah said the suspect was driving near the Pantai police station when policemen on crime prevention patrols flagged him down for checks.
He said a police uniform of an assistant superintendent (ASP) was found hanging in his car apart from a police vest and identification card.
He said investigators learnt that the man had on several occasion donned the uniform to merely show off as a police officer. Muhammad Azlee said initial findings showed the suspect was not found to have done so to commit any illegal act.
He said the suspect is being probed for impersonating a public servant under Section 170 of the Penal Code.