Two drug dealers, who hid narcotics inside A4 printer paper, have been sentenced to 15 years in prison each.
The High Criminal Court convicted the Pakistani labourers of possessing and selling methamphetamine (shabu) and synthetic cannabinoids.
The sly suspects saturated the printer paper in unregulated CBD oil, in order to transport and store it undetected, the court heard.
Police reportedly found 177 A4 papers in the possession of the defendants – of which 28 were found on a suspect’s person, and 149 in his home.
The duo, aged 34 and 26, were identified and arrested after a Customs Affairs officer detected suspicious contents inside a package arriving in Bahrain, with 26-year-old defendant’s name on the box.
Inside the package, authorities reportedly found 850gm of powder meth hidden between the folds of bedsheets, and the case was passed on to the Anti-Narcotics Directorate.
“Instructions on the box stated that it was to be dropped off at a specific location, so we formed a team to go to the address in Muharraq and arrest the culprits,” an officer earlier testified.
“We called the phone number listed on the package, and informed the addressee that his mail had arrived. After signing on it, the second defendant was arrested. Upon searching him, we found narcotics in his personal possession.
“The first defendant was carrying with him 28 A4 papers saturated with a narcotic, along with two containers of liquid CBD oil weighing 30gm each.”
The policeman added that, in the defendants’ home, a dark-coloured piece of hashish weighing 4gm was recovered, along with miscellaneous items to package and distribute drugs.
A probe concluded that the men disseminated their product through dead mail, by stashing it in public places for customers to pick up from, or burying it at a previously agreed-upon spot.
According to the Public Prosecution, the duo, aged 26 and 34, were part of a criminal network that imported narcotics into Bahrain in order to profit.
It added that they received orders from a man in Pakistan named Saif ul-Rahman, and multiple text conversations with him were seen on the defendants’ phones.
Prosecutors added that the first defendant looked for empty perfume bottles on sale to store the CBD oil in, as was recorded in his search history.
They admitted to the charges.
Unregulated CBD oil is banned in Bahrain and other countries as the liquid may be cut or laced with substances harmful to users’ health.
Synthetic cannabinoids embedded in paper are a method used to discreetly deliver these illicit substances. The liquid is sprayed onto sheets of paper, or are used to soak the paper in.
These infused papers are often cut into smaller pieces, smuggled into prisons or sold illicitly, as they can be easily concealed and consumed by smoking or chewing.
The potency and unpredictable composition of synthetic cannabinoids make them particularly dangerous, often leading to severe health effects.
The US Drug Enforcement Agency stated in a report that ‘the abuse of these substances for their psychoactive properties is concerning’ and that they both pose a serious risk to users.
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