Rouhollah Serish Abadi bin Samad was caught with the drugs in his suitcase arriving at Bali airport on Thursday night at 19.40 p.m. from Damascus, Syria via Doha, on Qatar Airways.

Unlike other Iran nationals previously caught smuggling drugs by swallowing them, the suspect chose to hide them in his luggage. which was easily detected by officers.

"It's an old modus operandi, hiding the drugs in the luggage. It is too easy to detect," Bambang Wahyudi, head of the customs and excise's monitoring and service, said Friday.

Bambang said the 26-year-old suspect looked anxious as he was waiting for his suitcase.

"The officers noticed his suspicious behavior, as he was walking back and forth and looked worried."

When his luggage was scanned in the x-ray machine, officers saw something unusual on the monitor. The monitor showed a thick orange-colored layer indicating the presence of an organic substance.

Further checking using an ion scanning instrument indicated that the suspect was carrying a substance containing 43 percent methamphetamine.

In the suspect's suitcase, officers found a plastic package containing white powder, which was then tested positive for crystal methamphetamine following a quick check using a portable test kit.

The suspect admitted that he was paid US$2,000 to take the drugs from Damascus to Bali by a man whose name was said to be Wahid.

He was asked to call Wahid as soon as he arrived in Bali to receive the next instruction.

"The drugs he brought, totalling 1.047 kilograms, was worth around Rp 2.2 billion, as the price of crystal meth in illegal market could reach Rp 2 million per gram," Bambang said.

He said besides Rouhollah, there were also two other Iranian citizens on the flight.

"The three persons sat in the same row, but the two others didn't carry any drugs."

The suspect, he went on, is allegedly linked with several Iranians previously arrested for trafficking drugs to Bali.

"They might be from the same syndicate. When this suspect was being questioned, he mentioned the names of the previous suspects," he said, adding that his office had handed over this case to the police.

Head of Bali police's narcotics department, Adj. Sr. Comr. Mulyadi said the police had yet to find out where these drugs would be taken .

"We will question the suspect further to reveal his links to the other syndicates," he said.

He said the suspect could be charged with violating article 113 of the 2009 Narcotics Law, and could face the death penalty since he brought more than one kilogram of crystal methamphetamine, which the law classifies as being in Narcotics Group 1.

Last December, seven Iranians were arrested by the airport's customs officers on charge of trafficking 4.5 kilograms of crystal meth capsules by swallowing the drugs in containers. Two weeks after this, another Iran national was also caught attempting to smuggle crystal meth using a similar modus operandi.

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