The Bukit Aman Narcotics Department and Perak police made the biggest drug bust in the country for this year when they seized a consignment of 1,015,500 Eramin 5 pills valued at RM15.2 million from a transport company at Jalan Kuala Kangsar in Ipoh on Wednesday.

This followed a police operation in Johor where police seized about RM12.3 million worth of Eramin 5 pills on Aug 12.

NONE In the two operations, police busted an international drug syndicate comprising a total of 17 members aged between 24 and 74 years. Four members were from Taiwan, three from Singapore, one from Indonesia while nine were Malaysians comprising eight men and a woman.

Bukit Aman Intelligence and Operations Narcotics Department Director Zul Hasnan Najib Baharudin told a media conference in Ipoh today that the two successful drug raids were carried out with the close cooperation of the narcotics intelligence departments of Taiwan, Singapore and Thailand.

The modus operandi of the busted drug syndicate was to use a transport company godown to store the drugs and later move the consignments by hiding them inside huge textile rolls.

Cash and gold also seized

He said police are trying to determine if the drugs got into the country by sea or by air. He added police believe they have also arrested the mastermind of the syndicate and hope to make more arrests soon.

NONE Zakaria was quick to add that Perak was not a drug trafficking centre but was only used as a transit point by the busted syndicate.

Police have confiscated about two million Eramin 5 pills during both raids and have seized an assortment of assets including cash, gold and vehicles worth RM4.2 million from the syndicate.

During the Aug 12 raid, police stormed a clothing store in Ayer Hitam, Johor and found 529,500 Eramin 5 pills hidden in five mannequins.

Following this seizure, police raided two houses in Johor Bahru and seized 295,000 Eramin 5 pills, 15kg of ketamine and 890 dormicum pills.