KOTA KINABALU: Five members of a drug syndicate, including a 17-year-old, have been arrested and syabu worth over RM800,000 seized following a series of raids here and other districts this week.
Also confiscated from the suspects were 11 vehicles, designer handbags, watches, jewellery and cash, all worth a combined RM1.2mil.
Sabah Police Chief Commissioner Datuk Jauteh Dikun said the suspects claimed to be only the middlemen.
“They claimed to have been doing this for only a few months but looking at what they owned, we suspect they have been at it longer,” he said at the Sabah police contingent headquarters in Kepayan here yesterday.
He said the raids were jointly conducted by anti-narcotics police from the state police headquarters and the east coast Kinabatangan district police force.
Comm Jauteh said the first arrest involved a 27-year-old man who was intercepted at Jalan Sandakan-Lahad Datu at about 11.45am on Monday.
“He was found with 10.5kg of syabu, the biggest amount seized from all the suspects,” he said.
In the second arrest that same day, he said police nabbed two men who were found with 2.3kg of the same suspected substance, in the Semporna district.
“And in the follow-up operations, we detained a 17-year-old boy who was found with 1.7kg of syabu. The last suspect was arrested in the Tuaran district with 1.5kg of the drug.
“Altogether, the drugs weighed some 14kg and were valued at about RM840,000 in the market,” Comm Jauteh said, adding the oldest suspects were in their 40s.
Following these arrests, he said police confiscated the vehicles, jewellery, cash, luxury bags and watches from their homes and other locations.
“The vehicles were worth some RM790,000, the jewellery RM172,000 while the cash we found amounted to RM164,000.
“We believe these were the ‘fruits’ of their drug activities,” he said, adding the case was being investigated under Section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act.
Comm Jauteh also said 10kg of syabu could “feed” the habits of some 50,000 drug addicts in a day.
A kilogramme of syabu could fetch somewhere between RM45,000 and RM60,000 in Sabah, he added.
To a question, Comm Jauteh said police were still on the hunt for other syndicate members though he did not specify the number.
“We are also investigating if they had any connection with other syndicates outside Sabah.
“This is Sabah police’s biggest drug bust so far this quarter and it was thanks to information from the public,” he said urging more people to come forward.
