Bahrain: A Belly dancer is in the dock after she allegedly tried to smuggle crystal meth into Bahrain.
The 42-year-old Thai woman was arrested on August 13 at the customs office of Bahrain International Airport, according to case files.
Custom officials found 71gm of the drug, known locally as shabu, and glass pipes of the kind used to smoke methamphetamine in a package that the woman was trying to collect.
She denies selling or smuggling drugs but admitted to prosecutors that she was a user and claimed that she was going to share the meth with one her friends and a Bahraini man.
“My friend in Hong Kong sent me a package to collect at the airport,” the woman said in her statement to prosecutors.
“I was arrested when police told me to open the package and they found five bags of shabu and three pipes inside.
“Two of the bags belonged to me, but I was supposed to hand the other two to a Thai female friend and a Bahraini man. I had sent my friend in Hong Kong money for the pipes and a BD500 downpayment for the drugs.”
This contact in China had promised to send money to the Thai woman’s daughters if she helped smuggle the drugs, she claimed.
“She said that she gave the Bahraini man my address so he could pick up the drugs from my house,” said the Thai woman.
“She then hid the drugs in a make-up bag that she sent to me.
“She promised that she would give my children in Thailand BD200 as a reward if I helped give the drugs to the Bahraini man.”
The defendant said that she had used methamphetamine daily for the past 10 years and described herself as “a drug addict”.
Earlier, the customs officer told the court how he had demanded the package be opened after his suspicions were aroused.
“A package came in from Hong Kong that we ran through the X-ray machine at Bahrain International Airport,” he said his statement to prosecutors. “I then placed a mark on it before a Thai woman came to collect it on the same day.
“We then asked her what the package contained and she said cosmetics, but when we examined it we found substance that looked like shabu.”
The woman denied drug smuggling when she appeared before a judge last week and was remanded in custody for 15 days pending further investigations.
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