The Saudi Customs Department, in collaboration with the Ministry of Interior, last year foiled attempts to smuggle considerable amounts of illegal items, including 1,190 weapons and military materials, and investigated 354 people involved in smuggling, sources said. An estimated 71 percent of smuggling attempts were foiled and the smugglers were referred to authorities in the Ministry of Interior, sources said. The Customs Department, which seized 1,153 firearms that 180 people tried to smuggle into the Kingdom and 37 packages of military materials that were being carried by ten people, also made numerous seizures of forged documents, drugs, alcohol, jewelry and other items, according to sources. Officials found 2,083,871 bullets that 164 smugglers tried to bring into the country, they added. More than 7 tons of narcotics, over 43 million Captagon pills and 103,000 bottles of liquor were seized, according to the report, which found that most smuggling attempts were made at land borders. Authorities arrested 82 people who attempted to bring 103,978 forged documents into the country, department sources said. Also, 5,167 banned religious books and materials were seized from 379 people and four people were arrested for trying to smuggle 28 banned political books and materials, sources said. Officials caught 2,326 people who tried to smuggle 9,851 items that contravened the public taste and morals, along with 20 others who tried to bring 7,477 banned literary and technical materials into Saudi Arabia. Customs investigators also foiled attempts to smuggle 9,252,098 pieces of jewelry and precious metals that were carried by 67 people, the sources disclosed. The number of seizures was the highest on King Fahd Causeway, which connects Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, and Al-Hadeetha border post was the site of the highest number of seizures of narcotic pills; 21 million pills were seized there, followed by Al-Durra with more than 10 million pills and Dhiba Seaport on the Red Sea with seizures of more than 6 million narcotic pills, Customs Department sources said. Smuggling through airports reached 25 percent of the total seizures with the highest number of cases at King Khaled International Airport in Riyadh, followed by King Abdul Aziz International Airport in Jeddah, according to sources. Smuggling attempts through sea ports represented the lowest number of cases, just two percent of the seizures. King Abdul Aziz Port in Dammam had the highest number of sea-based smuggling attempts, followed by Jeddah Islamic Port.
