The global recession has hit everyone, but perhaps no one harder than junkies that are looking for a fix. These days, in Malaysia, where cash was scarce before and almost non-existent now, the local police is more concerned about busting barter trade than dealing for cash.
Initial police investigations have revealed that addicts who are short on cash, exchange stolen car accessories, cell phones and electrical goods for their ‘fix’.
The police uncovered this new ‘barter trading’ between drug peddler and addict during a raid at a house in Jalan Kuhara near here in August.
In that raid at the home of a drug peddler, Tawau police chief Assistant Commissioner Ibrahim Chin said the police detained a dadah addict mother of three.
He said, from the 29-year-old woman’s house, the police seized an assortment of stolen items including a handycam, digital camera, 20 cell phones, 12 car radios and two mini hi-fi radios, among others.
In a follow-up operation on Oct 18, Ibrahim said the woman’s 33-year-old husband was nabbed in Kota Kinabalu to facilitate investigations into a series of barter trading transactions with drug addicts.
He appealed to victims of car break-ins to go to the Tawau police station to identify the stolen items to prefer charges against the man.
