Criminal gangs devise new drug smuggling methods, but security forces stay one step ahead

Director of the Anti-Narcotics Directorate at Abu Dhabi Police:

, a trained and qualified security operative deployed to infiltrate criminal gangs, identify their methods and plans, and thereby expose smuggling routes and apprehend those involved before their schemes are executed.Regarding mechanisms for dealing with external networks, Brigadier Al Dhaheri explained that any security operation conducted outside the country is carried out within the frameworks of international coordination and joint cooperation between the relevant agencies. He outlined that procedures begin with the seizure of narcotics and smugglers, followed by investigations that reveal the parties or individuals behind the operation, culminating in international coordination to pursue and arrest the key suspects and traders involved.On the subject of the age at which drug use begins, Al Dhaheri confirmed that awareness efforts have yielded positive results in recent years, with the average age of first drug use rising compared to the past. He noted that the average age of first use observed in recent years is around 21, whereas in previous years there were cases involving younger individuals aged 15 and 16.He explained that most cases recorded among younger age groups were linked to families in which one of the parents or close relatives used drugs, adding that rates of use among younger age groups are now very limited with only isolated cases, and that the majority of these cases are connected to family environments already involved in drug use. He pointed out that field experience and investigations have shown that cohesive families characterised by mutual understanding and stability rarely see cases of drug use, and when they do occur, they tend to be limited individual experiences driven by curiosity.

Thursday, 25 June 2026, 12:06 AM

Brigadier Taher Gharib Al Dhaheri, Director of the Anti-Narcotics Directorate at Abu Dhabi Police, speaking about new drug smuggling methods and counter-narcotics efforts.

Brigadier Taher Gharib Al Dhaheri, Director of the Anti-Narcotics Directorate at Abu Dhabi Police, has confirmed that criminal gangs never stop devising new methods to smuggle narcotics in attempts to evade security services, but that the country's counter-narcotics agencies now possess advanced, proactive tools and capabilities that enable them to detect these methods and apprehend those involved before their plans are carried out.

He said that counter-narcotics agencies have, over recent years, dealt with a wide variety of innovative smuggling methods, including concealing drugs inside the stomachs of fish or inside animals, within bricks, building materials and marble, as well as inside wall clocks, paintings, decorations, agricultural sculptures and other means that gangs resort to in order to hide contraband and deflect suspicion.

He explained that no matter how many new methods criminals devise, counter-narcotics agencies are now several steps ahead of them — a reversal from the situation in the past, when smugglers used to try to outpace security services and invent methods that were difficult to detect.

He noted that one of the most striking and hardest-to-detect methods involved using the outer frames of containers and trucks to hide narcotics. The inside of the container would appear completely empty, while the drugs were concealed within the outer metal frame — a method difficult to uncover because no one would expect the outer structure itself to contain narcotics.

He stressed that uncovering cases of this kind would not have been possible without the security agencies' success in infiltrating criminal gangs and obtaining the necessary intelligence. He noted that one of the most prominent tools used by counter-narcotics agencies is the so-called

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