DRI arrests Kenyan woman at Bengaluru Airport with 2.6kg cocaine worth Rs 26 crore

Sources said that the woman was intercepted by the Bengaluru unit of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence while boarding a flight to Delhi at the Kempegowda International Airport. Upon her checking, the DRI sleuths found that the woman had concealed 2.56 kg cocaine in the false bottom of her suitcase.

Bengaluru: In a major breakthrough in the war against drugs, the Karnataka unit of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence arrested a 36-year-old Kenyan woman and recovered cocaine worth Rs 26 crore from her possession at the Kempegowda International Airport in capital Bengaluru, official sources said. According to DRI officials, the 36-year-old woman was caught while checking in to travel on an Indigo 6E flight from Bengaluru Airport to Delhi on Monday Jan 15.

The accused woman, who had come to India on a tourist visa, was found carrying 2.56 kg cocaine in her suitcase, an official said. He said that the woman had concealed the cocaine in the false bottom of her suitcase. The value of the contraband recovered from the Kenyan woman is worth Rs 26 crore in the international market, added the official. Following the recovery of the cocaine, the Kenyan woman was formally arrested by the DRI under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.

She was later produced before court and remanded in judicial custody. Further proceedings into the case are going on. Significantly, Monday's was the 2nd big recovery of cocaine in Karnataka capital Bengaluru by the DRI in as many months. It can be recalled that the Bengaluru unit of the DRI had on December 11 last year seized at least 99 capsules of cocaine weighing 2kg from a ‘body packer’ Nigerian national.

Sources said that the arrested Nigerian national had ingested the contraband drug for safe passage of the drug and to dodge police surveillance.