Customs seize 9 kg of mixed drugs from a 65-year-old Maldivian
Maldives Customs seized 9 kg of mixed drugs—identified as synthetic cathinone, heroin, cannabis and ecstasy—from a 65-year-old Maldivian man, an air cargo shipment and a post package, and handed the man to police for further investigation. The cannabis component is not broken out separately from the combined total.
🇲🇻 Maldives
Maldives Customs seized9 kg of drugs from a 65-year-old Maldivian man who
arrived on a Sri Lankan Airlines flight on Wednesday.[1]Customs found 9 kg of
drugs in an air cargo shipment brought to Maldives on Wednesday and in a post
package.[1]
During first-stage testing, the seized substances were identified as synthetic
cathinone, heroin, cannabis and ecstasy.[1]Customs found 349 grams of heroin
in the man’s possession.[1]The post package contained 582 grams of synthetic
cathinone.[1]Together with the cannabis and ecstasy, the total weight of the
seized drugs is 9 kg, Customs said.[1]
Customs handed the man and the seized drugs to police for further investigation.[1]
Photos and video
Photo captioned 'Drugs seized by Customs' showing the seized drugs. Photo: The EditionPhoto details
The 9 kg total is a combined figure across synthetic cathinone, heroin, cannabis and ecstasy; no separate cannabis-only weight is given, so kg_seized cannot be split into a cannabis-only value.
No charges, trial or court outcome were reported; the man was handed to police for further investigation.
The article does not give a separate date for the seizure; 2024-09-18 (Wednesday, the arrival day named in the text) is used as the incident date, with the article published on 2024-09-20.
The text gives a weight ("9 kg") but the figures have no kg_seized; check whether it belongs there.
Maldives Customs seized 3.2 kg of cannabis from a suspicious postal package inspected on Saturday 15 August 2026. No arrests were reported, and Customs warned the public against collecting suspicious parcels for others.
Customs officers inspecting sea freight on 25 December 2025 found more than 40 kg of hashish oil hidden in bottles labelled as chocolate syrup. Police estimated the street value at over MVR 30 million and arrested two men, aged 47 and 57, on 26 and 27 December; both were remanded for five days. Hashish oil is a cannabis concentrate and is treated as a Schedule 1 drug.
Operation Alimagu began on 13 November 2025 with about 500 officers raiding 110 places on 39 islands; police said 110 people were arrested on the first day. By late December they had searched 166 locations and nine vessels, arrested 193 people, and seized 30.63 kg of drugs and 182 bottles of alcohol.
Officers found more than 15 kg of cannabis in the luggage of a 44-year-old Malaysian man who arrived on flight EK656 on 27 July 2024. Police put the street value at MVR 12.3 million and called it the largest single cannabis seizure of the year; a controlled delivery led to a second arrest, of a 41-year-old Malaysian man.
