Man sentenced to life, fined MVR 2mn for smuggling meth into Maldives

The Criminal Court on Thursday issued the life sentence against a man and ordered him to pay a hefty fine, after finding him guilty of smuggling drugs into the Maldives.

Ismail Naufal, H. Semoa, K. Male’, was arrested on December 18, 2023, upon return to Maldives after a trip to Malaysia. A search of his luggage led to the discovery of 994 grams of methamphetamine (meth).

It was his 14th overseas trip that year.

The prosecution accused him of helping smuggle drugs into the Maldives in exchange for money, and charged him with smuggling a Schedule 1 drug and cannabis use.

Criminal Court judge Ali Nadheem issued the verdict in the cases on Thursday, finding him guilty on both charges.

Naufal was sentenced to a life term of 25 years in prison and told to pay an MVR 2 million fine for drug smuggling, and sentenced to another three years for cannabis use.

Following his arrest, Naifal initially claimed that the suitcase from which the drugs were found was newly purchased from Malaysia, and that it was therefore possible that the drugs had already been there when he purchased it.

But the prosecution submitted photos taken from his phone of the drugs found in his luggage as evidence. This was cited by the court in establishing intent to smuggle the drugs.

Some of the photos were included by the court in its judgement report.