Cairo airport customs foil narcotics, firearms smuggling

An Egyptian passenger arriving from Poland was found hiding a large quantity of narcotic drugs in his luggage. (Shutterstock)
Short Url
Updated 13 February 2023
Follow

Cairo airport customs foil narcotics, firearms smuggling

CAIRO: Customs officers at Cairo International Airport foiled attempts to smuggle narcotic pills and underwater hunting rifles into the country.

An Egyptian passenger arriving from Poland was found hiding a large quantity of narcotic drugs in his luggage.

Another Egyptian traveler arriving from the US was found hiding seven underwater hunting rifles in his bags.

Customs authorities took legal measures against the two and referred them to the Public Prosecution Office.

The passenger arriving from Warsaw was stopped while trying to exit the customs committee gate.

Customs officers observed medicinal packages inside his baggage during an X-ray inspection.

A manual search of the luggage revealed 132 prohibited drug strips containing 900 pills.

In the second case, customs officers noticed the presence of metal condensates in luggage during an X-ray inspection, with the bag’s owner claiming that he was transporting a wooden children’s bed.

But a manual search of the baggage led to the seizure of seven underwater hunting rifles as well as accessories.

The rifles are prohibited under Law No. 394 of 1954, a report by the Explosives Police Department at the airport said.

Separately, customs officers in Terminal 3 at Cairo International Airport foiled two attempts to smuggle narcotic drugs.

Travelers arriving from Athens and Amsterdam were found in violation of Anti-Narcotics Law No. 162 of 1960 and a number of other regulations, officials said.

Legal measures were taken and both passengers were referred for prosecution.

In the first case, an Egyptian passenger arriving from Greece was caught with illegal drugs hidden inside chewing gum containers, as well as two electronic cigarettes and a bottle containing prohibited anesthetic oil.

A second smuggling operation was thwarted in coordination with the Anti-Narcotics Department at the airport.

Ten electronic cigarettes and sweets containing CBD were seized from an Egyptian passenger arriving from Amsterdam on an EgyptAir flight.


Syria Kurds chief says ‘all efforts’ being made to salvage deal with Damascus

Updated 25 December 2025
Follow

Syria Kurds chief says ‘all efforts’ being made to salvage deal with Damascus

  • Abdi said the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurds’ de facto army, remained committed to the deal
  • The two sides were working toward “mutual understanding” on military integration and counter-terrorism

DAMASCUS: Syrian Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi said Thursday that “all efforts” were being made to prevent the collapse of talks on an agreement with Damascus to integrate his forces into the central government.
The remarks came days after Aleppo saw deadly clashes between the two sides before their respective leaders ordered a ceasefire.
In March, Abdi signed a deal with Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa to merge the Kurds’ semi-autonomous administration into the government by year’s end, but differences have held up its implementation.
Abdi said the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurds’ de facto army, remained committed to the deal, adding in a statement that the two sides were working toward “mutual understanding” on military integration and counter-terrorism, and pledging further meetings with Damascus.
Downplaying the year-end deadline, he said the deal “did not specify a time limit for its ending or for the return to military solutions.”
He added that “all efforts are being made to prevent the collapse of this process” and that he considered failure unlikely.
Abdi also repeated the SDF’s demand for decentralization, which has been rejected by Syria’s Islamist authorities, who took power after ousting longtime ruler Bashar Assad last year.
Turkiye, an important ally of Syria’s new leaders, sees the presence of Kurdish forces on its border as a security threat.
In Damascus this week, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan stressed the importance of the Kurds’ integration, having warned the week before that patience with the SDF “is running out.”
The SDF control large swathes of the country’s oil-rich north and northeast, and with the support of a US-led international coalition, were integral to the territorial defeat of the Daesh group in Syria in 2019.
Syria last month joined the anti-IS coalition and has announced operations against the jihadist group in recent days.