Major drug seizures become frequent at RGIA

Hyderabad: In less than two weeks, drugs — mostly cocaine and heroin — worth over Rs 100 crore have been seized at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport. Seizure of heroin worth nearly Rs 12 crore on Wednesday was the latest, while cocaine worth Rs 80 crore was seized on May 1 and cocaine worth over Rs 11 crore in late April.

Interestingly, all the suspects were African nationals, mostly Tanzanians, with ingested drug capsules becoming an increasingly common modus operandi. In Wednesday’s seizure, officers of the Air Intelligence Unit, Hyderabad Customs intercepted a 50-year-old Tanzanian male passenger and seized 1,389.1 grams of heroin worth Rs 11.53 crore in the international grey market.

According to the Customs officials, it was based on passenger profiling and body behaviour that officers identified the Tanzanian, who had arrived from Johannesburg via Abu Dhabi by Etihad Airways Flight No.EY-274 on April 26. “When enquired, he admitted that he had ingested capsules containing heroin. He was then produced before a magistrate after which he was admitted to a hospital. Under medical supervision, over a period of 6 days, he purged out 108 capsules containing heroin wrapped in adhesive transparent tape,” Customs officials said, adding that the suspect was arrested on May 3 and remanded in judicial custody.

Officials said he revealed that he swallowed the capsules in Tanzania. He was supposed to purge them over a period of three to four days and hand them over to an unknown person. This is the second Tanzanian national held at the RGIA in the last couple of weeks using a similar modus operandi to smuggle in drugs. On April 21, the Hyderabad Customs along with officials of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence seized 1157g of cocaine worth Rs 11.57 crore, also from a Tanzanian national. The 44-year-old male passenger had arrived at Hyderabad by flight EK-528 from Johannesburg via Dubai. He was also admitted to the hospital and over a period of five days, purged out 79 ingested capsules of cocaine.

On Sunday, the DRI had seized eight kg of cocaine worth Rs 80 crore from two passengers, a Tanzanian male travelling from Cape Town to Hyderabad via Dubai and a woman passenger from Angola, coming via Dubai. “Ingenious ways of transporting the contraband have been noticed by way of laminating drugs finely into their baggage or by concealment in shampoos and food items or at times by ingesting drugs in laminated capsules,” the DRI said.