A 40-year-old man has been kept in preventative custody after police told a court that a thorough search of his car yielded 10kgs of cannabis grass divided into bags. 

Nicu-Cristinel Strirbu, a Romanian national who said he lives in Germany, was arraigned in front of magistrate Victor George Axiaq on Friday on drug trafficking charges. 

Police inspector Alfredo Mangion told the court the police had been reliably informed that the accused was involved in the importation of drugs from Sicily. 

Court heard that the man was stopped in Swieqi while driving a Mercedes, where a lengthy search yielded substances suspected to be cannabis grass, already neatly packaged in separate bags, allegedly ready to be sold. 

Stribu denied the charges. His lawyer, Charles Mercieca, did not request bail. 

The prosecution’s request for a freezing order on Stribu’s accounts was also upheld by the court. 

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