[Al Ahram] Egypt's anti-narcotics authority on Monday announced it had seized 22 tonnes of hashish from a ship off the Mediterranean coast between Egyptian and Libyan territorial waters, describing the move as "the biggest in the history of Egyptian drug-seizure operations.""We were able to seize the drugs and arrest the Egyptian owners of the shipment and the ship's crew, who we incarcerated
You have the right to remain silent...
in Libyan territorial waters," Tareq Ismail, head of the interior ministry's anti-narcotics authority, declared in televised statements on Monday afternoon.
He added that the ship had been en route to Egypt from Morocco.
Ismail described the operation as a "major blow" against Egypt's prohibited multi-million-dollar-a-year recreational drugs industry.
Before Monday's operation, the biggest-ever drug haul by Egyptian police had been last September, when they were able to seize a 15-tonne truckload of marijuana that was being smuggled into the Nile Valley from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.