Bengaluru/Mumbai: Narcotics worth Rs 76 crore – hidden inside comic books and cornflake packets – were seized in separate raids on a train and at the Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru on Friday. Two persons, including a Nigerian national, were arrested.
In one incident, Railway Protection Force (RPF) personnel and a Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) team from Bengaluru, caught a Nigerian woman on the Hazrat Nizamuddin-Ernakulam Mangala Express, at Panvel station, near Mumbai, with cocaine and methamphetamine worth Rs 36 crore. The drugs were hidden inside boxes of corn flakes and cream rolls.
According to a Central Railway official, Etudumon Doris was arrested from the second AC A2 coach of the train. An infant was travelling with her. On being questioned, Doris confessed to carrying narcotics. A search of a multi-coloured travel bag she was carrying led to the recovery of two rectangular black packages.
A drug detection kit was used and the contents were found to be cocaine. A packet of cornflakes and another of cream rolls were also found in the bag. They contained a white crystalline substance that was identified as methamphetamine. The crystals weighed 1.488 kg.
In the second incident, officers of Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) Bengaluru Zonal Unit, acting on specific intelligence, intercepted an Indian male passenger, who arrived from Doha at the Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru.
A search of his luggage led to the seizure of two superhero comics which seemed unusually heavy. When the officers carefully peeled off the paper stuck below the covers, a white powder was found inside. A drug detection kit confirmed that the powder was cocaine.
The cocaine weighed 4,006 grams (over 4 kg) and is valued at nearly Rs 40 crore in the international market. The drugs were seized under provisions of the NDPS Act. The passenger was arrested.