Ice drug seized from salt shipment booked for Australia

Pakistan could have faced export ban if drugs had landed on Australian port

KARACHI:

Timely action of Pakistan Customs averted the threat of ban on exports of Pakistani products to Australia, Customs officials told The Express Tribune on Friday.

A Customs team foiled the bid to smuggle huge quantity of methamphetamine, commonly known by its street name, ice, to Australia under the guise of rock salt.

Acting on a tip-off from sleuths present in labour gangs at docks, Customs Examining Officer Shehzad Bhatti, carried out a successful raid on the night between Thursday and Friday and seized about 4seized about 46 kilogrammes of crystal meth ice from a shipping container.

Officials said that Customs authorities have registered a case and arrested a suspect, Fida Hussain.

"Death knell would have rung for Pakistani salt export to Australia, had the shipment of ice drug reached Australian port," a leading manufacturer and exporter of salt said. Chinese food stores in Australia are the biggest buyers of Pakistani salt, Hub Salt Company Chairman Ismail Sattar told The Express Tribune.

Chinese food stores buy almost 80% of salt exported from Pakistan to Australia. Shipments are landing at Australian ports on a daily basis, bringing dearly needed foreign exchange to national coffers, Sattar said.

He said that if this consignment of salt had left the port, then the exports of Pakistani salt to other countries of the world including Australia would have been severely affected and the importers there would have stopped the export orders of salt from Pakistan.