Dubai Police Arrest 280 Suspects for WhatsApp Drug Service
- Publish date: Wednesday، 20 March 2024 | Last update: Tuesday، 10 December 2024
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Dubai Police have arrested 280 suspected traffickers accused of selling drugs to the public through a WhatsApp drug delivery scheme.
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The police have found that the suspects were sending unsolicited WhatsApp messages to users promoting the sale of drugs.
The buyers would make a bank transfer and the suspects would share GPS coordinates of the location for the collection of drugs.
According to the police, the drugs were buried in remote areas, therefore the GPS coordinates were sent to the buyers.
The WhatsApp messages were sent from random unidentified phone numbers, so the police had to track down these suspects through other means.
Director of the Anti-Narcotics Department at Dubai Police Major-General Eid Thani Hareb shared that his team had seized more than 118kg of illegal substances during the investigation.
The director shared that his team had to analyse data from social media platforms to figure out who was receiving the money from the buyers in their bank accounts.
The Economic Security Centre of Dubai found 810 suspicious bank accounts and these accounts were all frozen after 4,560 suspicious deposits were recorded.
According to Maj-Gen Hareb, some parents were buying drugs from the traffickers using their children's IDs to deposit money in the traffickers' bank accounts.
Around 600 bank accounts thought to be linked to the suspects were blocked between June and December of 2023.
The police have urged the public to take screenshots of suspicious messages they receive and forward them to the police to help them arrest and penalize these traffickers.