On Monday, the British Royal Navy announced that one of their warships aided in the seizure of an estimated $4.3 million worth of crystal meth from smugglers in the Gulf of Oman.
This bust came after a British destroyer, the HMS Defender, sent forth a party to search a suspicious ship while scanning the northern Arabian Sea for smugglers and traffickers. The ship, described as a dhow, was flagged by one of their helicopters.
Marines for the Royal Navy then found 11 "mailbag-sized sacks" that held nearly 300 lbs. of the drug, according to a statement from the navy.
Reuters reports that the HMS Defender was one of many British warships that were sent to the Middle East in an effort to provide security for commercial shipping following the seizure of a U.K.-flagged tanker by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz this past July. BBC adds that the Defender is one of a fleet of more than a dozen ships, submarines, and support vessels that are combing the region over Christmas. It has been there since August.
