Police seize heroin couriered to Ivory Coast

ABIDJAN, Aug 28 (Reuters) Police in Ivory Coast discovered 6.6 kg of heroin inside a piston for a lorry engine sent to the West African state by a courier from Pakistan, an official said today.

Authorities seized the drug, with a local street value of 136,000 dollars, at the premises of the courier company following a tip-off by an anonymous caller.

A Ghanaian man to whom the package had been addressed was arrested and could face up to five years in jail, police said.

''We got some metalworkers to saw open the piston and found the drugs. We had no difficulty finding the addressee,'' a senior police officer told Reuters, asking not to be named.

Ivorian police launched a crackdown in May on local drugs use, which has risen fast since a 2002-2003 civil war that divided the country in two.

West Africa has also become a hub for drug running into Europe, including cocaine from Latin America and opiates from Asia. Both Senegal and Mauritania have made their biggest ever cocaine hauls in the past few months.

REUTERS MS BST2218