GEORGE TOWN: A civil servant was among seven people arrested in an operation against a drug trafficking syndicate, in which police seized 840.729kg of ganja worth RM2.1mil.
Penang police chief Comm Datuk Mohd Shuhaily Mohd Zain said the suspects, aged between 24 and 29, were detained in separate raids in Penang and Perak in an operation conducted on Jan 18 and 19 by the Bukit Aman Narcotics Criminal Investigation Department and state police headquarters.
“During the first raid at 6.45am on Jan 19, police arrested three suspects in a car at the Bagan Ajam toll plaza in Butterworth.
“The arrest led police to another location at the Bukit Jambul complex parking lot half an hour later,” he told a press conference at the state police headquarters here yesterday.He said police found the 479.729kg of ganja worth RM1.1mil hidden in a car in the parking lot.
On the same day, police stopped a car at the Changkat Jering toll plaza at 7.44am and detained three suspects.
He said police also raided another location at 2pm that same day, where they found 10 plastic sacks containing 361kg of ganja in a car parked along Persiaran Mahsuri in Bayan Baru.
He said another suspect was arrested in Kampung Melayu in Ayer Itam at 3.20pm.
In total, police seized 823 compressed blocks of ganja weighing 840.729kg and worth RM2.1mil, Comm Mohd Shuhaily said.
He noted that the confiscated drugs were enough to be used by 1.8 million drug addicts.
He said intelligence indicated that the syndicate, active since early last year, supplied the local drug market.
Urine tests on all the suspects came back negative but five of them had records for drug and criminal offences, he added.
“All the suspects have been remanded until Jan 26 for investigation,” he said, adding that police are still trying to identify the mastermind.
