KOTA KINABALU: Tawau police arrested a 22-year-old man who tried to hide 7.4kg syabu worth RM444,400 among flour packets at the public jetty there.
The police made the seizure after noticing the suspicious individual, who was a foreigner, at Tawau Ports public jetty around 10.10am on Aug 8.
Tawau OCPD Asst Comm Jasmin Hussin in a statement on Monday (Aug 14), said the latest seizure brought the figure of syabu bust made by Tawau police to 23,734.12 grams to date since January.
"For the latest case, a team of police assigned to their daily duties at the jetty area, noticed the suspect who was behaving suspiciously and in possession of a white gunny sack.
"They proceeded to hold him for inspection and found a white paint bucket inside the sack, which contained seven green plastics (labelled Guanyinwang) and two clear plastic packets with flour inside them.
"Further inspection on the seven green plastics were found to contain clear crystal substance believed to be syabu type of drugs.
"Further check on past records of the suspect also found no criminal record and the urine test came back negative," he said.
The suspect has been remanded for seven days and the case is being investigated under Section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 (trafficking in dangerous drugs).
Jasmin added that the police are actively tracing the drug trafficking network in relation to this case, and that the syabu was brought into Tawau but meant to be distributed outside the district.