Revealed: How drug dealers now scheme to avoid arrest

 

By Hellen Nachilongo

Dar es Salaam. Foreign drug dealers are increasingly engaged in sexual partnerships with Tanzanian women and use the affairs to avoid detection and arrest, the Drug Control Enforcement Authority (DCEA) Commissioner General, Aretas Lyimo revealed yesterday.

He said with the new style makes it difficult for law enforcers to locate their [drug dealers’] whereabouts at any given time.

They also hide the drugs in different locations in houses owned by their Tanzanian women.

 “The situation has caused trouble to a number of women as legal action has been taken against them. “When these women land in trouble their men deny having close relationship,” he said.

Mr Lyimo revealed this in Dar es Salaam yesterday when he briefed journalists on the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Day.

Also known as World Drug Day, the day is marked on 26 June every year, to strengthen action and cooperation in achieving the goal of a world free of drug abuse.

At national level, this year’s commemoration will be held in Arusha between June 23 to June 25 and President Samia Suluhu Hassan is expected to grace the event.

He said operations conducted in Dar es Salaam, Kilimanjaro, Arusha and Coastal regions have revealed that most dealers cohabit with more than one women in different locations.

According to him, during their comprehensive operations conducted from March 25 to June 19 this year, 109 suspects, including three foreigners, were arrested.

“We managed to seize various types of illicit drugs, including 200.5 kilograms of heroin and 978 bags of dried cannabis which were ready for transportation,” he said.

Other drugs seized in the process were 531.43 gram of methamphetamine, 3,878 pellets of heroin, 134 pellets of cocaine, 3,840 litres of pethidine and 1,093 hectares of cannabis.

In collaborating with the International Narcotic Control Board (INCB), the DCEA also managed to block1,505.46 kilogrammes of chemicals from entering country thus.

“If such total amount would have been imported and drugs were made out of it, more than four million drug users would have been affected,” he said.

Commissioner Lyimo noted that the 109 people arrested have identified the existence of influential foreigners with legal permits who operate behind the scenes and may not be directly involved in drug trafficking.

Most of them, he said, have been in close relationships with businesswomen and women who are not working so that it could be easy for them to send someone at any time to go and get illicit drugs.

He urged women not to involve themselves in relationships with people they do not know very well because it will end in problems. “The public should not accept to carry any parcel without knowing what is inside it,” he said.