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The items were discovered as the Special Committee for Combatting Drug and Alcohol Abuse conducted a tour at the Israel Tax Authority’s narcotics unit.
By United with Israel Staff
The Special Committee for Combatting Drug and Alcohol Abuse, chaired by Likud MK Boaz Bismuth, conducted a tour on Sunday at the Israel Tax Authority’s narcotics unit, located in a mail sorting center in Modi’in in central Israel.
During a tour held by the committee at the mail sorting center, Israel Tax Authority (ITA) personnel presented to the committee the process of checking packages suspected of being used for smuggling. In the course of the tour, the team opened a box that, according to the sender’s report, was supposed to contain fabrics.
After a dog sniffed the box and gave a “suspicious package” alert, the narcotics unit personnel opened the box before the eyes of the committee members and ITA staff, and found in it a kilogram of packets of crystal methamphetamine, with a market value of NIS 1.5 million. The packets were sewn into fabrics that originated in Laos.
Also seized during the tour were an M-16 rifle barrel and one ton of khat sent from Israel to the United States.
According to Yigal Malka, director of the customs unit, since the start of the COVID-19 period the postal service has served as a major conduit for smuggling.
Responding to a question by the committee chair, Malka said, “We don’t know how much we’ve failed to catch, but seizures of drugs and weapons are on the rise.”
He predicted that the rate of seizures would increase after the introduction of new technological equipment in the coming months.
ITA official Dani Ezra presented to the committee data on seizures of drugs smuggled in packages by mail. He described the situation as catastrophic, and said that six sophisticated cases of arms smuggling had recently been foiled.
According to his data, between the years 2020–2023, 1,750 smuggling cases have been prevented, and over one ton of drugs were seized, including 300 kilograms of crystal meth. Of the smuggling cases, 43% were identified by suspicious indications, and 20% by sniffer dogs. Most of the packages originated in the Netherlands, the United States and Thailand.
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