KOTA BARU: Some drug traffickers in Kelantan have been running small businesses to mask their illegal activities.
Speaking to the New Straits Times, Kelantan police chief Datuk Mohd Yusoff Mamat said they also do this to create the impression that they have legitimate sources of income.
"Police are still monitoring this matter, but we do not deny that some drug traffickers in the state operate small businesses to conceal their true activities from us," he said.
He said that police have yet to determine whether these drug traffickers have been making substantial profits from drug sales, particularly methamphetamine pills, locally known as Yaba pills.
"This is because our intelligence checks over the past two years have not revealed this, and we have never seized or confiscated property worth millions of ringgit from the state's drug traffickers," he said.
When asked whether the majority of drug traffickers lived along the Kelantan-Thai border, Mohd Yusoff said it was not necessarily the case.
"Some of them live in other districts that are not located near the border. This assessment is based on the arrests made by the state police.
"We also do not deny that Kelantan is among the states with the highest number of Yaba drug traffickers compared to other states. This is based on cases and arrests involving the seizure of pills, and is also due to the state's proximity to Thailand," he added.
Regarding the modus operandi of these traffickers, he said they would typically use transporters or hired middlemen to bring the pills in from the neighbouring country.
"Normally, the transporter or middleman does not know who the real leader of the syndicate is," he said.
On Yaba pills, he said that they are now popular among drug addicts in the state due to their low price.
"These pills are sought after by local addicts as they are easy to obtain," he said, adding that Yaba is also known as 'pil gila' among locals.