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Mumbai: The officers of Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) have arrested a Kenyan national woman who had arrived from Nairobi for allegedly smuggling cocaine worth Rs 20 crore. The syndicate had adopted a unique modus-operandi whereby they had concealed the liquid cocaine in shampoo/lotion bottles and the appearance of viscous liquid was also similar to shampoo/lotion so as to make the detection difficult.
According to the DRI sources, on the basis of intelligence, the officers of DRI Mumbai intercepted one female passenger who had arrived from Nairobi to Mumbai on Friday. Examination of the baggage of the passenger resulted in the recovery and seizure of 1983 grams of viscous liquid substance in two shampoo/lotion bottles.
"On testing, the viscous substance tested positive for the presence of “cocaine” a narcotic drug covered under the NDPS Act. The syndicate had adopted a modus-operandi whereby they had concealed the liquid cocaine in shampoo/lotion bottles and the appearance of viscous liquid was also similar to shampoo/lotion so as to make the detection difficult," said a DRI source.
The approximate value of the seized contraband is estimated to be around Rs 20 crore in Illicit market. The passenger has been arrested and remanded to judicial custody. The agency is also probing who had supplied the contraband to the passenger and who was supposed to receive the said consignment.
The drug traffickers had also attempted to smuggle black cocaine in Mumbai, in the past. The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) officials in 2022 had seized Black Cocaine worth Rs 13 crore from a Bolivian lady at the Mumbai Airport. The Black Cocaine is a rare drug which is a mixture of regular Cocaine with other chemicals of administrated quantity to dodge the sniffer canines and also manipulate dosage as per target consumer.
