Mumbai: A special court designated under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS) on Wednesday sentenced a woman - a Venezuelan national - to ten years of rigorous imprisonment and imposed a fine of ₹1 lakh on her for attempting to smuggle Cocaine by air in 2017.
A co-accused of Yurena Marchena - Nigerian national Ejike Anichukwu - was acquitted. He had been in judicial custody since his arrest in 2017. A detailed judgment is yet to be made available.
Woman apprehended after search at airport
Marchena had been apprehended at the city’s international airport after specific information was received by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) that a Venezuelan national by her name would be arriving by a particular flight of the Ethiopian Airlines by an early morning flight. Accordingly, a raid was conducted and Marchena was apprehended and searched in a room near the Customs clearance area.
The officers found during the search that in the check-in bag a packaging was pasted which contained a suspicious powder. The drug detection kit showed the substance positive for Cocaine. The package contained 1.8 kg of the drug on being weighed. She was not found to be carrying anything on her person.
The name of the co-accused Ejike Anichukwu had emerged during the investigation. Officers of the NCB posted at Goa had conducted the operation. They had found that he had booked tickets for Marchena and was to collect the drugs from her. He was apprehended outside a resort in North Goa.
