Paceville drug dealers ‘get clever’ as police clamp down on drug abuse

Drug dealers are adopting new ways of selling their wares in Paceville to minimize the amounts of illegal substances that they carry, a court was told today.

The law enforcement crackdown on drug abuse in entertainment areas continued last weekend with the arrest of a man, suspected of trafficking cannabis in Paceville.

Inspector Jonathan Cassar arraigned Abdikarim Isman Omar, 20 from Somalia before magistrate Natasha Galea Sciberras this morning, accusing him of aggravated possession of the drug.

On Sunday, officers had been carrying out a routine patrol in the entertainment district when they noticed the accused approach a group of around 6 people, before heading back to a wooded area where he was seen to pick something up from what appeared to be a hiding place and decided to speak to him.

The accused had then noticed the officers and allegedly threw away whatever he had picked up.

Inspector Cassar told the court that the objects the accused had been seen to thrown away had turned out to be six sachets of cannabis.

Sniffer dogs searching the wooded area had recovered another five sachets of the drug, he said. The weight of the sachets came to around 10 grams in total.

When questioned by police, the accused had denied throwing the sachet away and claimed to have gone up to the trees to answer the call of nature, the court was told.

Omar was accused of possession of cannabis, in circumstances indicating that it was not for his personal use, less than 100 metres from a place frequented by youths.

He was also charged with possession of the drug between 2013 and 2014 and with exposing himself in a public place.

The court heard Inspector Cassar warn that this method of caching drugs in a secluded area, making the sale and only then going back to retrieve the required amount was becoming increasingly popular of late. “Everyday, we are encountering drug cases where the suspects are using the same modus operandi,” he said.

Defence lawyer Joe Brincat filed a not guilty plea and requested bail for the accused. There was no risk of absconsion, the lawyer submitted, adding that the accused had been questioned and had replied saying that he had nothing to do with the drugs.

Inspector Cassar objected to this request, however. The accused had told police that he lived in St. Paul's Bay but when he was accompanied there, he did not have any keys to the flat he identified. Another person had opened the door and the accused had only taken some clothes from the apartment. The accused had no ties to the island, added the prosecution.

The court denied the bail request and ordered that the man be remanded in custody.