The Coast and Border Security Department (CBSD) has managed to foil an attempt to smuggle in 200kg of hashish to Qatar, Staff Navy Brig Ali Ahmed al-Mannai, director of CBSD, told local daily Al-Watan in an interview.

He said that the smugglers received the drugs within the Qatari waters and tried to enter Doha with it. The incident took place in May.

“At that time the sea was turbulent and sailing in such unbecoming weather conditions raised suspicions. The smugglers were consequently arrested but they showed some resistance and four of the department personnel were injured in a scuffle with them after their weapons were seized,” said Brig al-Mannai.

He also said that the department managed to foil a similar attempt recently, as traffickers on a boat were trying to bury around 80kg of hashish on a Qatari isle.

The director said that in 2004 the drug smuggling attempts through sea had increased which made CBSD think seriously of ways to crack down on drugs smuggling.

“The department, which works under the Ministry of Interior (MoI) made a strategic plan to install radars to monitor the sea,” Brig al-Mannai explained.

“The radars were installed at all key coastal areas. This was the first step of a more comprehensive project. With help of radars, around 12 smuggling attempts were spotted during 2004-2008 period,” Brig al-Mannai said, adding that smuggling attempts were spotted only through the radars without any intelligence inputs.

As drugs smugglers usually operate at night, our men spot them from their suspicious movements,he said.

“Smugglers are often ready to escape as soon as they feel that they have been spotted. Arresting them is a great challenge for the department, so it was found out that there is the need to equip our personnel with high speed boats to chase and arrest them,” he said.

A boat with the required specification was 100% locally made after many trials and modifications on the prototypes until the needed speed was attained. This facilitated the process of netting smugglers with CBSD personnel using sophisticated shooting and other equipment.

Brig Al-Manai said that there was no record of sneaking attempts in Qatari waters during the past four years other than drugs smuggling bids.