Nigeria makes record 62 kg heroin haul

LAGOS, May 4 (Reuters) Nigeria has made its biggest drug haul ever with the arrest of a trafficker trying to smuggle 62.4 kg of heroin to the West Asia, the country's narcotics agency said today.

The West African nation does not produce narcotics, but its porous borders and corrupt bureaucracy have made it a major conduit for hard drugs from Asia and Latin America heading to markets in rich nations.

''The heroin was packed in tubes ... and hidden in the false bottom of the suspect's travelling bag,'' a spokeswoman for the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency said from the northern city of Kano, where the trafficker was arrested.

The agency also arrested four other traffickers at the Aminu Kano International Airport with a total of 12.35 kg of cocaine.

One of the traffickers, a 62-year-old woman travelling to London, had 3.8 kg of cocaine when she was detained last month, while 1 kg was seized from a 31-year-old physically disabled man going to Amsterdam.

The two other traffickers heading to London and Germany had 7.5 kg of cocaine when they were arrested.

Sentences for drug smuggling are relatively light and do not deter drug mules in Africa's most populous country, where most people live in poverty.

In January, a Nigerian court fined a popular film actress 7,800 dollars for trying to smuggle 1.2 kg of cocaine to Britain.

REUTERS KK KN1748