Fishermen mistaken for enforcement officers send smugglers fleeing, 629kg of ganja seized

LANGKAWI: When a group of local fishermen spotted several panic-stricken men dumping large plastic packages into the sea from a vessel off the Langkawi island today, they smelled a rat.
Sensing that a crime was being committed in Malaysian waters — right under their nose — the fishermen wasted no time in contacting the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) over the dumping of the mysterious packages.
Unknown to the fishermen who were in their boat about 6.5 nautical miles southwest of Pulau Cupu near the Langkawi island, their hunch was indeed, right.
As the other group sailed away hurriedly in the 9.20am incident, the MMEA vessel, "Petir 81" arrived at the scene and after enquiring from the fishermen over where the mysterious packages were dumped, MMEA enforcement officers recovered them, one after the other.
The packages contained a staggering 629kg of ganja worth about RM1.8 million in the black market.
MMEA Northern Region director First Admiral Zulkarnain Mohd Omar said the drug smugglers had thrown the packages of ganja into the sea after having mistaken the fishermen to be MMEA enforcement officers!
He said the consignment of ganja weighing 629kg was meant for the Malaysian market.
"The fishermen became suspicious of the mysterious packages being hurled into the sea and contacted the MMEA.
"By their civic-conscious action, we were able to intercept the ganja consignment from reaching the Malaysian addict population.
"When the MMEA team arrived at the scene, the boat used by the drug smugglers was nowhere in sight but we managed to recover the 16 plastic packages thrown into the sea.
"Upon further examination, it was found to contain slabs of dried ganja," he said, adding that this was the largest seizure of drugs recorded by the MMEA in the area in recent years. — Bernama