Dubai airport has become a transit point for smugglers bringing high-value narcotics into Europe, the Italian police said on Monday.
Two smugglers have been arrested in recent days at Rome’s Fiumicino airport after arriving via Dubai, they said.
One was a 19-year-old Slovak with two kilos of cocaine stashed in a false bottom of his suitcase who had departed from Rio de Janeiro, while the other was a Nigerian who hid vials of cocaine in his socks.
The street value of the two seizures was put at around half a million dollars.
The smugglers do not leave Dubai’s transit lounge, as this would expose them to customs checks, the police said in a press release.
Instead, they use the Dubai-Europe leg and the tough anti-drug reputation of the United Arab Emirates to mask the country where they began their trip.