MANAMA, Nov 5: Bahraini authorities have seized some 300 kilogrammes of hashish smuggled from Pakistan via Iran and destined for trafficking in the Gulf Arab states, a police official said Sunday.

The drugs, worth $730,000, were seized after police, acting on a tip-off from Kuwaiti authorities, arrested two young Bahraini men and a 19-year-old Bahraini woman north of Manama on Friday night, Faruq Al Maawda of the criminal investigation department said.

The Kuwaiti interior ministry had been alerted to the haul by a ‘citizen’ who was contacted by the Bahraini trio as a potential buyer, he said.

Border police in Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, foiled an attempt to smuggle 143 kilogrammes of hashish into the kingdom, the official SPA news agency reported on Sunday.

Police spotted the smugglers in the southern province of Najran and “confronted them,” it quoted the border police’s local chief as saying.

The smugglers fled back to where they came from, leaving behind the drugs, he said.

SPA did not specify the incident’s timing or the source of the hashish, but Najran lies along the border with Yemen, and Saudi authorities often report catching arms and drug smugglers in the area.—AFP