The Coasts and Borders Security Department (CBSD), popularly known as the Coast Guard, have recently manufactured a speed boat locally, and using it for the first time in an anti-smuggling operation, caught two cross-border drug traffickers who had hidden 81 packets of narcotics on Qatar’s shores.
Named ‘Mikhbat’, a 100 percent Qatari speed boat, CBSD officials sighted the boat of the nefarious drug dealers on their radar, and immediately deployed it to intercept them.
The smugglers were also using a speed boat, so they tried to flee but not realising that the Qatari Coast Guard sleuths were on a more speedy boat, they could not go farther and were rounded up especially as the CBSD team from Al Ruwais was joined in by another team from Al Khor.
Such operations earlier took an hour but with ‘Mikhbat’ in operation, the latest smuggling bid was foiled within five minutes, a Ministry of Interior release said yesterday.
The duo was arrested and Anti-Drug Directorate brought in sniffer dogs to locate the consignment of drugs which were buried into the dunes on the coast by them.
Naval Brigadier Ali Ahmed Al Badeed Al Mannai was quoted as saying in the release that the Qatari coast is 550km long and open. The northern areas (Al Shamal) are an important area as it is through it that most drug smuggling bids are made, he said.
The CBSD has installed radars all over and surveillance towers are there, so any suspicious movement in Qatar’s territorial waters is detected immediately.
And as soon as a suspicious boat is located, patrol teams with highly trained patrol staff rush to intercept, said Al Mannai.
http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=Local_News&subsection=Qatar+News&month=June2009&file=Local_News2009062314153.xml
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