ROAD ACCIDENT LEADS TO BUST OF DRUG SYNDICATE

Police inspecting the wrecked car believed to be carrying cans of cough syrup. as involved in a road accident on the North-South Expressway near Muar yesterday.

MUAR: Police believe they have smashed a Johor-Kelantan cough syrup smuggling ring with the arrest of one of its main runners, seven hours after the discovery of several cans containing the drug near here on Tuesday.

It started when a police team stumbled upon the find while investigating an accident involving two cars at the North-South Expressway between Tangkak and Jasin.

They found 50 cans by the roadside among the oil palm trees near the site of the accident. Thirty of the cans were full of cough syrup, l6 were empty and the rest were half full.

It is believed that the driver of one of the vehicles involved in the accident had thrown the cans there before he fled the scene.

Police later picked up a man, suspected to be the driver, at a workshop in Jalan Bakri here.
Ledang police chief Superintendent Harun Idris yesterday said initial investigations indicated that the 37-year-old unemployed man from Pasir Mas, Kelantan, was paid RM20 per can to deliver the cough syrup from Johor to Kelantan.

He said the man was believed to have done the same run several times over the past six months.

He said the man used a friend's car to drive to Johor to pick up the cough syrup before returning to Kelantan. There, he would deliver the substance to another man.

The entire run, said Harun, was done in a day.

"We are now looking into the possibility of arresting several others for their involvement in the case."

SOURCE: NEW STRAITS TIMES, 18 JUNE 2009