VISAKHAPATNAM: The officials of City Task Force (CTF) arrested a Nigerian involved in ganja smuggling, in the city on Sunday. They recovered 24 kg of the hemp worth Rs 96,000 from him. This is the second incident when a Nigerian was nabbed for smuggling the weed.
The arrested foreigner has been identified as Charles Chuks (40), who came to India around 18 months ago on a business visa and has been staying in Hyderabad.
According to assistant commissioner of police (ACP-CTF) I Chittibabu, on a tip-off the CTF teams raided an area near the Government Eye Hospital here and nabbed Charles Chuks, when he was trying to smuggle the dry ganja. Preliminary investigation revealed that Charles Chuks had visited Visakhapatnam city and some parts of Vizag agency five times in the last 18 months and had smuggled the contraband several times to Hyderabad, Nagpur, Delhi and Chennai.
Police said that the foreigner had visited some remote areas in the Vizag Agency and established contacts with some local ganja smugglers to procure the weed. Charles Chuks received the ganja from the contacts and was planning to transport it to Hyderabad, where he sells it at a premium.
The police are yet to ascertain the job of the accused and seized his passport but are yet to ascertain whether it is genuine or not. The accused along with the contraband has been handed over to the Inspector of Dwaraka police station for further investigation. A case has been registered and an investigation is on.
A year ago, another Nigerian, Ikechukwu Augustine (23), was among the three held for ganja smuggling in Vizag.