Drug raids lead to 3 arrests in Irbid

AMMAN — Three people were arrested on Tuesday on charges of possessing illegal narcotics and weapons in Irbid.

Police Spokesperson Major Amer Sartawi said a special Anti-Narcotics Department (AND) team raided the house of an alleged drug dealer in Irbid.

“AND officers that were tasked with following up on illegal narcotics cases received a tip-off about a repeat offender who had stashed illegal narcotics at his house and was firing live ammunition,” Sartawi told The Jordan Times.

Backed by a team of a special force, the AND team moved to the suspect’s house, the police official said.

“The suspect was arrested without any major incident,” Sartawi said.

Upon searching his house, the spokesperson said, officers found six weapons and seven kilogrammes of synthetic cannabis, known locally as "joker".

In a separate incident, a second force raided a tent that had been rented by two suspects to allegedly store illegal narcotics, according to Sartawi.

“Upon searching their tent, the police team found four kilos of ‘joker’ hidden inside," Sartawi added.

“'Joker' first surfaced in the world in 2000. It reached Jordan three years ago and what drug dealers do is to mix tobacco products with deadly substances such as rat poison to make the illegal product,” a police official told The Jordan Times last year.

The deadly mix could produce symptoms similar to illegal narcotics but will turn extremely harmful and dangerous if used repeatedly, according to the official.  

Police officials have previously stated that the ‘joker’ is being manufactured in the Kingdom and that “due to the easy access to its chemical ingredients, ‘joker’ is posing a major threat to Jordanian youth”, attributing some crimes committed in society to its use.

According to PSD figures in 2018, AND agents seized 47 million Captagon pills, 2,093 kilogrammes of hashish, 155 kilogrammes of “joker”, 74,738 kilogrammes of marijuana, 10,557 kilogrammes of heroin, 1,693 kilogrammes of cocaine and 820,790 various pills.

The three suspects were referred to the State Security Court (SSC) prosecutor.

They were ordered detained at a correctional and rehabilitation centre by the SSC prosecutor pending further investigations.

If convicted on the charges by the SSC, the suspects will face a maximum of five years in prison.