Cocaine worth Rs 9 crore seized from foreign national in Delhi

New Delhi, Oct 04: A man from Liberia has been arrested by the customs for smuggling into the country cocaine worth ₹ 9 crore at the international airport, according to an official statement issued on Monday.

The passenger was intercepted after his arrival from Azerbaijan via Addis Ababa on September 28, it said.

On thorough personal and baggage checking, nothing suspicious was found.

"On further enquiry, the passenger accepted that he has ingested/swallowed some capsules. Medical procedure yielded recovery of 50 capsules which further resulted in recovery of a total of 599 grams white powdery substance which tested positive for cocaine, having an international market value of ₹ 9 crore approximately," said the statement issued by Delhi customs.

Accordingly, the accused was arrested on Saturday and the cocaine was seized.

A senior customs official said another passenger is presently admitted in Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) hospital here and extraction of narcotic, suspected to be cocaine, was underway, news agency PTI reported.

In another two cases, the customs officials have seized gold worth ₹ 1.27 crore. An Indian man was intercepted after his arrival at Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport here from Bangkok on Saturday and two gold bars, weighing two kilograms, were recovered from him.

"The passenger tried to smuggle the gold by handing over the same to one airport staff," another official statement said, adding that the passenger and receiver were arrested.

The customs officials also recovered 937 grams gold, valued at ₹ 41.35 lakh, from back panel of toilet seat of a flight that had come from Dubai on September 29.

On the basis of profiling, the customs officials rummaged the aircraft and recovered a grey colour pouch from the toilet, the statement said.

The pouch contained paste/liquid substance and its extraction resulted in the recovery of 937 grams of the yellow metal, it added.