HMS Cumberland seizes 12 tonnes of cannabis resin off Oman
The frigate HMS Cumberland boarded a suspicious dhow off Oman and seized about 12 tonnes of cannabis resin. The navy valued the haul at over £43 million.
The Royal Navy frigate HMS Cumberland’s boarding team searched a suspicious dhow off the coast of Oman on 7 July and seized12 tonnes of cannabis resin with an estimated UK street value of more than £43 million.[1]The ship was on a Combined Task Force 150 counter-narcotics patrol in the Gulf of Aden after sailing from Plymouth on 24 May for a six-and-a-half-month deployment against drugs and piracy.[1]
The British Ministry of Defence put the haul at 12.4 tons of cannabis resin worth $70 million, enough for about 35 million marijuana cigarettes, and a UN drugs research officer called it the largest single seizure of cannabis resin on record.[2]The crew found the drugs packed as large bales in a secret compartment of a cargo vessel, and the shipment was believed to be bound from the Middle East toward Europe.[1][2]The seized drugs were later destroyed.[2]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
The navy's account gives 12 tonnes and a value over £43 million while the defence ministry's account gives 12.4 tons and $70 million; the report uses each figure as its source states it.
No arrests, charges or details of the dhow's crew were reported in these accounts.
Oman Customs found more than 4 kilograms of marijuana hidden in food bags inside a postal parcel on 19 October 2026. Earlier parcels yielded 2.07 kilograms in September 2024, and 5.4 kilograms from Thailand and 2.56 kilograms from Canada in June 2026. The cases point to small, repeated postal imports rather than one large shipment; no sender or recipient was named.
Customs officers at Salalah airport found 11.65 kilograms of marijuana in the baggage of two Indian travellers on 23 July 2025, then 6.5 kilograms in another Indian traveller's luggage five days later. At Muscat airport, officers reported 12.66 kilograms from a Chinese woman on 21 August and, on 13 September, 9 kilograms from one traveller and 8 kilograms hidden in food bags from another.
Police arrested two people linked to international trafficking networks after finding more than 85 kilograms of hashish and marijuana, plus 70,000 psychotropic tablets, at a coastal hideout in Quriyat. The Royal Oman Police said the drugs had been loaded into a vehicle for trafficking and consumption. The statement did not split the cannabis between resin and herb or name the source country.
The Royal Oman Police arrested two people and seized more than 75 kilograms of drugs, including crystal meth, hashish, marijuana and psychotropic tablets, in a shipment smuggled by sea, the force said on 29 December 2024. The statement did not split the haul by drug or name the vessel's origin. It showed cannabis resin and herb moving alongside methamphetamine and tablets in the same shipment.
