GEORGE TOWN: Police have arrested three suspects including a married couple with 23 blocks of compressed ganja and packets of syabu worth more than RM60,000.

       George Town OCPD Asst Comm Soffian Santong said the suspects, aged 38 to 40, were detained in raids by the district Narcotics Criminal Investigation Department (NCID) in Air Itam at about 9pm on Sunday (Feb 6).

       "Based on information received, we raided the first house, detained two men aged 38 and found four blocks of ganja with them," he told a press conference at George Town police headquarters on Tuesday (Feb 8).

       ACP Soffian said following the raid, police discovered 18 more blocks in a car, believed to belong to the suspects, in the vicinity of the house.

       He said they then arrested a woman in her 40s, the wife of one of the suspected detained earlier, at another house in the same area.

       Police also found one block of ganja and several packets of drugs believed to be syabu.

       ACP Soffian said in all, police confiscated: 23 blocks of ganja, as well as a clear plastic packet and two glass bottles containing dried leaves believed to be ganja, weighing a total of 22.3kg and worth RM55,697; and six clear plastic packets containing drugs believed to be syabu weighing 61.5g and worth about RM6,150.

       "We also seized equipment believed to be implements for smoking ganja and packing the drugs, as well as digital weighing scales," he added.

       ACP Soffian said police also confiscated a car and two motorcycles worth about RM88,000 in total.

       All the suspects have been remanded until Friday (Feb 11) to help with investigations under Section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952.

       In a separate development, ACP Soffian said Covid-19 standard operating procedure (SOP) compliance inspections conducted by George Town district headquarters saw a total of 49 compound notices worth RM49,000 issued to the public in January.

       He said the compound notices were issued for various SOP violations, especially not practising physical distancing.

       He said a total of 524 SOP compliance operations were conducted in January by police in George Town district alone, with 167 of them done in collaboration with other agencies.