Dubai Customs seize 1834 items in 2012

Dubai Customs seized 1834 illegal items at Dubai International Airport last year, the organisation announced on Monday.

The haul is lower than the 2165 seizures made in 2011.

The contrabands included drugs, sorcery and witchery items, fake goods, counterfeited banknotes and credit cards, antiques, endangered animals and plants, fake medicines, pornography, defaulted documents, jewellery, silver, diamonds, gold, precious stones and white weapons, according to the Dubai Customs Airport Operations Department.

On some occasions the items were smuggled in the passengers’ stomach, while they were often found in underwear, luggage, handbags, pockets, parcels, gloves, wallets, cartons, cigarettes packages and mobile phones.

More than 1000 of the intercepted passengers had an Asian nationality, while there were 277 Africans, 242 Europeans, 229 North Americans, 62 from Australia or New-Zealand and 14 from Latin America.

Majority were male, with only 164 females caught.

Nearly 200 were aged between 15 and 25 years, 616 were 26-35 years old, 556 were 36-45 year old, 330 were 46-55 year old, 130 were 56-65 years old and 23 were more than 65 years old, Customs said.

Dubai Customs Airport Operations Department director Ali AL-Maghawi said the 15 percent reduction in the number of seizures showed passenger education of restricted items was working.

He warned inspectors were always gaining new insights into smuggling operations.

“Customs inspectors join training courses programmes specialized in ways of inspection, identification of narcotics and restricted goods list categories, possible ways of smuggling, besides, the inspection teams provided with latest advanced inspection and examination technics, reiterating that Dubai Customs is always seeking to achieve its vision of being the leading Customs administration in the world supporting legitimate trade," he said.