Police: Hizbullah facilitates smuggling of drugs into Israel
Police estimate Shiite group facilitated smuggling of huge drug shipment caught on Lebanese border Tuesday
A shipment of 72 pounds of pure heroin seized by the police on the Lebanese border Tuesday originated in Afghanistan, sources in the force said. According to the police, Hizbullah facilitated the smuggling of the drugs into Israel.
The shipment confiscated, the largest ever to be caught in the north, is estimated to be worth some $6 million.
Superintendent Ami Mualem, head of the Lebanon Unit at the police's Galilee District, recounted the operation: "We spotted the two suspects as they were receiving the packages from the dealers on the Lebanese side. Once the suspects moved away from the fence they walked right into ours and the IDF's ambush and surrendered without a fight."
Police officers with part of heroin shipment caught (Photo: Doron Golan)
Mualem explained that each package containing 1 pound could have been turned by the dealers in Israel into 4.5-6.5 pounds of heroin.
The two men caught are Israeli Arabs from the village of Rama near Carmiel.
"We believe that the suspects arrested were only the couriers, because the big dealers never take the risk of collecting the drugs on the fence themselves," Mualem said.
The police officer also estimated that "Hizbullah is very much involved in attempts to carry out smugglings of this nature."
Sources in both the police and the IDF noted that the sharp rise in attempts to smuggle drugs from Lebanon into Israel that has been registered recently is linked to a clear intention by Hizbullah to flood Israel with drugs.
