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    13 September 2012| last updated at 08:19PM

    New kids on the block...Myanmar nationals making mark in the drug trade

    By NADIRAH H. RODZI

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    Myanmar nationals are now the main players in the city’s drug trade, according to statistics released by Kuala Lumpur police yesterday.

     City Narcotics Department chief Assistant Commissioner Wan Abdullah Ishak said among 393 foreigners arrested from January to August this year, 176 of them were from Myanmar, 51 were Indonesians and 35 were Iranians.
     During this period also, police seized almost RM32.5 million worth of various drugs from these foreign syndicates.
     Abdullah said there was a large Myanmar community here, with most of them centred around the Selayang wholesale market.
     “Everyone is clamouring for jobs there while many others are involved in trade elsewhere but the lure of easy money from the drug trade is also tempting,” he explained.
     “The Myanmar suspects are mostly small-time pushers but many of them are getting involved in this trade.”
     Abdullah added these small-time pushers operate from all sorts of places like public toilets, car wash centres, Internet cafes and budget hotels.
     Since January, city police have also busted three drug laboratories in Sentul, Brickfields and Dang Wangi and most of these labs were operated by Iranians.
     In a recent arrest, police nabbed a 57-year-old Singaporean man at a fast food outlet in Ampang on Tuesday.
     “We had him under surveillance for about a week and when we nabbed him, he had about 1kg of ganja in his possession. The drugs were in a tissue box which he was carrying in a plastic bag,” Abdullah said.
     “When we confronted him, he denied that the plastic bag was his but checks with nearby closed-circuit television camera footages revealed otherwise. We believe he has been working with local syndicates for a while.”
     Investigations also revealed that the man had past convictions relating to drug offences in his country.

     

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