Maldives Customs Service has seized a hefty number of drugs being smuggled into the island nation via post.

The drugs were seized on 12 separate occasions, during operations at the post office where packages dated between June 28 and October 13 were inspected.

The total number of drugs seized in the operations weighed 503 grams and have a street value of MVR 1,475,800.

The confiscated narcotics have since been handed over to the Maldives Police Service (MPS) for further investigations.

According to customs, most of the packages arrived from the Great Britain, followed by packages from Netherlands. One of the packages arrived from Ethiopia with 248 grams of powdered cocaine.

The packages from Netherlands contained 12 grams of Ketamine, 10 grams of ecstasy in powder-form, 158 tablets weighing 59 grams of ecstasy and one gram of cannabis whereas the packages from the Great Britain mostly contained ecstasy weighing 33 grams, six packets of cocaine weighing six grams and 134 grams of cannabis.