UK Navy Warship Captures $4 mln of Drugs in Gulf of Oman

Britain's Royal Navy said on Monday one of its warships had helped to seize a batch of crystal meth worth more than 3.3 million pounds ($4.3 million) from smugglers in the Gulf of Oman.

HMS Defender, a destroyer based at Portsmouth, southern England, sent a party to search a suspicious dhow as it conducted reconnaissance in the northern Arabian Sea.

Royal marines discovered on the dhow 11 mailbag-sized sacks carrying drugs weighing 131 kg (288 lb) in total, the Royal Navy said in a statement.

HMS Defender is one of several British warships deployed to the Middle East this year to help secure commercial shipping in the region after Iran seized a UK-flagged tanker in the Strait of Hormuz in July. 

(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova Editing by Gareth Jones)