Federal Customs Authority Launches 'RasCargo' On Detection Of Drugs, Explosives

ABU DHABI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 27th Feb, 2021) On the side line of the 'UAE Innovates 2021' session, the Federal Customs Authority (FCA) launched the RasCargo project, which is aimed at detecting drugs and explosives in inward consignments to customs, employing K9 dogs sense of smell.

Through RasCargo project, state-of-the-art technologies detect smuggled substances by collecting an air sample from consignments, containers, mass goods, wooden ships, engines, huge machinery, small and medium vehicles and closed trucks, then the same will be inspected by K9 dogs of the customs inspection unit within the Authority which in turn smell it to detect any smuggled drugs or explosives demonstrating specific sign if any such substances suspected.

Ali Saeed Matar Alneyadi, Commissioner of Customs - Chairman of FCA, said the UAE is the first country ever to implement such modern technology worldwide for detecting drugs, and highlighted that such technology is one of its kind in inspecting trucks, goods and closed vehicles by combining modern technology, man effort, and K9 dogs.

Alneyadi said RasCargo project contributes to bolstering security and augmenting UAE entrepreneurship in customs inspection domain by deploying customs K9 dogs in addition to promoting the competency of inspecting inward goods and curtailing clearance time and protecting human capital as inspectors and controllers as well as K9 dogs and goods against hazards and combating smuggling operations.

In this context, he pointed out that the significance of RasCargo project underlies in developing K9 dogs skills, employing their sense of smell in new functions contributing to facilitating trade movement while reinforcing customs control scheme by combining all elements of customs inspection process.

He said implementing the RasCargo will highly contribute in increasing the rate of inspection and detection of drugs and explosive conducted by customs authorities within its efforts to combat smuggling operations and decreasing the customary false alarms in customs inspection operations.

He underscored that training operations performed by the Authority, in preparation to implement the project, proved K9's super productivity in inspecting air samples abstracted from trucks, vessels, huge goods, big engines and machinery in accordance with practical standards under the project as dogs inspected about 20 to 30 sample an hour for each analysis unit, in other words K9 dogs can inspect 160 to 240 containers/ trucks daily within 8 working hours daily.

One of the most prominent project features is zero impact of inspection operations quality by climate and external factors unlike human-based inspection operations where K9 dogs inspect air samples and analyze them in moderate temperature room and furthermore, the project features mobility options to collect samples from trucks or containers without moving or relocating the same to the venue of inspection and examination.