Malaysian anti-narcotics agency busts billion-ringgit drug trade
INFOGRAPHIC BY MALAYSIA’S THE STAR
KUALA LUMPUR—For close to six years from 2009 to 2015, drug rings from two countries ran rampant in Malaysia, smuggling drugs into the county from places like Nigeria and China, and sending drug mules to South American countries.
The billion-ringgit industry involved some 30 syndicates from two dominant players – the Iranians and Nigerians.
However, Bukit Aman got wind of their activities and hit them hard.
A total of 482 Iranian drug traffickers have been detained and 798 Nigerian syndicate members hauled in by the authorities.
The back of the syndicates has now been broken.
Almost all the major syndicates from the two countries have been busted in an intensive effort, which focused on intelligence gathering and international cooperation between law-enforcement agencies in various countries.
“These two are no longer the ‘powerhouses’ they once were as their operations in the country have been crippled.
“Most of these syndicates have since fled to their own countries while some remnants have resorted to setting up bases in neighboring countries,” Commissioner Datuk Seri Mohd Mokhtar Mohd Shariff told Malaysia’s The Star in his first exclusive interview since being appointed the NCID director in April last year.
He said the “evolution” of the syndicates from these two countries was connected. The Nigerians first recruited Malaysian women as drug mules, with 185 being detained between 2012 and 2015.
“They would send these women to countries such as Brazil and Venezuela. There, they would be strapped with cocaine and sent for distribution to other South American countries.
“However, this modus operandi changed when the Iranians convinced the Nigerians to not only deal with cocaine but methamphetamine as well,” he said.
Both syndicates then started to bring major amounts of methamphetamine or “shabu” into the country via air cargo and container ships.
“The Iranians were the first major players in the local shabu industry and, in the last six years, we seized more than a ton of the drug.
“They used various means, including drug mules while some of the traffickers even posed as private university students and lived in luxury apartments in selected ‘posh’ locations in the Klang Valley,” he said.
The Iranian traffickers would buy luxury apartments worth up to RM3 million in cash. Some even bought luxury cars, including a Ferrari.
“They were not afraid to flaunt their wealth,” Comm. Mohd Mokhtar said.
The Nigerians, who had been smuggling in heroin from Afghanistan, then followed suit and started bringing methamphetamine from their home country.
“However, in order to cater to the region’s market, the Nigerians started to look for a closer producer of shabu. Their major source was China.
“The police are working closely with China’s National Narcotics Control Commission to combat these drug syndicates,” he said.
After six years, Mohd Mokhtar said his department has managed to break into the drug network used by these two syndicates.
“We have intensified operations against them during the same period through various units, especially the Bukit Aman Special Tactical Intelligence Narcotics Group (Sting).
“They used to bring in the drugs in large containers but that’s a thing of the past now,” he said.
Mohd Mokhtar said NCID has seized a variety of drugs, including 385.35 kilos of shabu, 368.32 kilos of ganja and 39.49 kilos of heroin from the Nigerian syndicates in the last seven years.
“These people are always thinking of new ways to dupe the authorities so the police must be two or three steps ahead of them.
“We have studied their methods of smuggling drugs into the country and we managed to detain the lot of them and seized a sizeable amount of their products,” he said.
Zeroing on high profile targets and detaining them under the Special Preventive Measures (LLPK) contributed greatly to the downfall of the syndicates.
“This forced them to use Malaysians as ‘partners’ rather than just as drug mules,” he said.
A total of 948 traffickers were arrested in 2014 while last year, 854 were hauled in.
“Of the total, 23 drug lords were detained in 2014. Last year we nabbed 22,” he said.
Mohd Mokhtar said the syndicates were never short of replacements which was why police always had to be on their toes.
“When one syndicate is busted, another takes its place.
Of the 798 Nigerians arrested, 426 came in as private university students.
“They give outrageous reasons for coming. Some come here to study English, some to learn golf!” he said.
“Nigeria is also a Commonwealth country. They don’t need to study English in Malaysia.
“It’s absurd. Some even come for culinary studies,” he said.
