عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
World

4 Detained after Germany’s Largest Ever Heroin Seizure Traced Back to Iran

German police seen in Potsdam's central train station, on June 26, 2020. (Getty Images)
German police seen in Potsdam's central train station, on June 26, 2020. (Getty Images)
TT
20
TT

4 Detained after Germany’s Largest Ever Heroin Seizure Traced Back to Iran

German police seen in Potsdam's central train station, on June 26, 2020. (Getty Images)
German police seen in Potsdam's central train station, on June 26, 2020. (Getty Images)

Four people were detained after police made their largest ever seizure of heroin in Germany, prosecutors said on Friday, with police confiscating some 700 kilograms (1,543 pounds) as part of an operation against a gang smuggling narcotics from Iran.

The drugs were seized in the port city of Hamburg at the end of August. The detentions were made overnight on Thursday, when police searched 10 premises in the eastern cities of Dresden and Chemnitz, in Hamburg and in the Netherlands.

They seized documents, laptops, storage devices, smartphones and vehicles.

The detained were an unnamed 40-year-old Turkish-Serbian suspected ringleader, a 35-year-old Iranian in the Netherlands, a 54-year-old German suspected of using his firm's logistics fleet to transport drugs, and a 53-year-old Turkish go-between.

One was detained in Germany, one in Spain, and two others in the Netherlands. Prosecutors are seeking the extraditions of the three who were arrested abroad, while a court in Dresden is due to decide on Friday whether the person detained in Germany should be placed under arrest.

Most Viewed

 
World

China Conducts Military Patrol in South China Sea, Warns Philippines

A China Navy Ship with bow number 574 observes the Philippines United States Japan Multilateral Maritime Cooperative Activity off a disputed South China Sea shoal on Friday, March 28, 2025. (AP)
A China Navy Ship with bow number 574 observes the Philippines United States Japan Multilateral Maritime Cooperative Activity off a disputed South China Sea shoal on Friday, March 28, 2025. (AP)
TT
20
TT

China Conducts Military Patrol in South China Sea, Warns Philippines

A China Navy Ship with bow number 574 observes the Philippines United States Japan Multilateral Maritime Cooperative Activity off a disputed South China Sea shoal on Friday, March 28, 2025. (AP)
A China Navy Ship with bow number 574 observes the Philippines United States Japan Multilateral Maritime Cooperative Activity off a disputed South China Sea shoal on Friday, March 28, 2025. (AP)

China's military said it had conducted a patrol in the South China Sea on Friday, the day US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reaffirmed Washington's commitment to Manila, which disputes some of Beijing's claims in the waterway.

A spokesman for the Southern Theater Command of the People's Liberation Army said on Saturday that the Philippines frequently enlisted foreign countries to organize "joint patrols" and "disseminated illegal claims" in the region, destabilizing the area.

Hegseth met his counterpart Gilberto Teodoro and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr on Friday in Manila, the first stop on a tour of Asia that also includes Japan. The same day, the United States, Japan and the Philippines held naval drills in the South China Sea.

The Philippine embassy in Beijing did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

China claims almost all the South China Sea - through which $3 trillion in commerce moves annually - overlapping with sovereignty claims by the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Brunei.