More than 11,000 held during drug raids

SHAH ALAM: A total of 11,295 people were picked up by the Selangor Narcotics police during raids conducted from January until July this year and 511 have been charged under Section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952.
Selangor police chief Commissioner Datuk Mazlan Mansor said police will go all out in the war against drugs and were making significant progress in combating it.
"Some 114 people were also picked up for involvement in drug trafficking syndicates in Selangor and they were detained under Dangerous Drugs Act (Special Preventive Measures) 1952," Mazlan told a media conference at the Selangor police headquarters today.
The raids yielded 2,498.73g of Erimin 5 pills, 71,631.52g of Ketamine, 54,451.73 g of heroin, 15,324g of cocaine and 381,634.90g of ganja, he said adding police impounded cash, cars, and properties worth RM12 million bought by syndicate members.
Meanwhile, in the latest operation, police nabbed 24 people, including four women, in raids conducted from Aug 1 until Aug 11.
Police seized RM570,000 worth of various drugs which included slabs of ganja, heroin, syabu and ecstacy.
The suspects were aged between 18 and 63 and majority of them were unemployed, labourers and private sector employees.
Mazlan said the seized drugs could cater 13,000 drug addicts and were believed to be for the local distribution.
"The drugs were brought in from a number of neighboring countries.
"Out of the total arrests in the first week of the month, police caught a man,35, in a double-storey house at Section 7, Bandar Baru Bangi in Kajang.
From the arrests, he said they seized 132.110kg of ganja worth RM396,000 from the man.
He said investigations found the ganja was obtained from three different syndicates and it was packaged in different colors to ascertain the drug's ownership.
"One slab weas brown, while the others were white and our preliminary investigation revealed that they were packaged by different drug syndicates and we believe this suspect is operating on the lower level and he could be a seller," he said.