Barely a week after a Malawian national was caught with 3.12 kg of heroin at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Shamshabad, officers of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) on Sunday night arrested two international passengers and sezied 8 kg of cocaine worth ₹80 crore.
Acting on a tip-off, the officials detained a male Tanzanian national who arrived in Hyderabad from Cape Town via Dubai on a business visa and a lady passenger from Angola on a tourist visa, and found huge quantity of cocaine in their possession.
“Each of them was carrying 4 kg of Class A drugs concealed in the false bottom of their trolley bags. The estimated value of the seized cocaine in the illicit market is ₹80 crore,” an official said.
Speaking to The Hindu, a senior officer with the DRI said Hyderabad was the point of entry for the consignment and the ‘spread’ was supposed to happen elsewhere. “Like every major case related to narcotics caught here, even in this case, the contraband was supposed to be taken to Delhi and other major cities in north India via Hyderabad. It was not supposed to be distributed here,” he said.
According to the officer, there has been a spike in the smuggling of cocaine, heroin and other drugs to India, especially through Hyderabad, with restrictions on air travel easing and passenger traffic increasing.
“There is nothing specific to Hyderabad. The spread was supposed to happen elsewhere,” he said, adding that while Customs have facilitated the clearances smoothly, the alert officers have busted the drug smuggling syndicates and nabbed carriers on multiple occasions across the country.
Ingenious ways of transporting the contraband have been noticed by way of laminating drugs finely into their baggage which are almost invisible to the naked eye or by concealment in shampoos and food items or at times the passenger becomes body carrier by ingesting drugs in laminated capsules.
Multiple cases involving the seizure of cocaine concealed in the form of pills ingested by air passengers have been booked by the DRI in the last four months. “In two such cases booked in Mumbai during March and April, a total of 2.42 kg of cocaine was found concealed in pills ingested by two passengers,” the DRI said.
In April, 1.15 kg of cocaine concealed in pills ingested by a passenger was seized at Hyderabad, and in another case, one kg of cocaine was seized at Bengaluru in August 2021. Apart from Mumbai and Hyderabad, seizures of cocaine have also been effected at other airports also.
They said that sustained efforts of DRI have led to the seizure of more than 350 kg of cocaine, estimated to be worth ₹3,500 crore in the illicit market, across the country after January 2021. This includes a big haul of about 303 kg of cocaine, seized from a containerised cargo at Tuticorin Port.
