Dubai Customs' Smart Risk Engine — AI-Powered Cargo Screening Against Smuggling

Dubai Customs, part of the Ports, Customs and Free Zone Corporation, uses an in-house-built Smart Risk Engine that applies artificial intelligence and big-data analysis to millions of shipment records to flag high-risk cargo before physical inspection. The engine feeds into two linked programmes: Siyaj, a smart border-monitoring system combining AI with detection equipment, patrol vehicles and canine units, and Shahin, which applies smart technologies to cargo inspection.

Officials — including Ports, Customs and Free Zone Corporation chairman Abdullah Bin Damithan, Dubai Customs director general Abdulla Busenad, and customs inspection executive director Mohammed Al Ghaffari — say the system helped seize 406kg of narcotics and 2.3 million illicit pills across 502 anti-smuggling operations in the first five months of 2026. A separately reported case attributed to an AI-generated alert led to the seizure of 278,850 pregabalin tablets and the arrest of four suspects.

Available reporting names the officials and headline seizure figures but does not disaggregate how many interceptions resulted specifically from the AI risk-scoring model as opposed to K9 units, behavioural analysis or routine inspection, nor does it describe an external audit, appeals process for flagged shipments, or published technical documentation of the risk model.

Read the full analysis: https://www.porttechnology.org/dubai-customs-intelligence-foils-drug-shipment/