2 coke carriers part of African drug cartel?

HYDERABAD: The two African nationals who were caught smuggling cocaine worth Rs 80 crore at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport on Sunday, could be carriers working for a major drug network out there, suspect DRI officials. Initial inquiries revealed that both the passengers, including the woman from Angola are visiting India for the first time. 

Though it is suspected that the two passengers, a woman from Angola holding a business visa and a male Tanzanian national holding a business visa, are working for the same network, officials are verifying the details and digging deep to unravel more facts about their networks and gangs.

Officials have also found that the tourist and the business visas they were holding were just to dodge surveillance and their primary reason for the travel was drug smuggling.

It is also being probed if they were to deliver the consignment to receivers in Hyderabad for further distribution or to transport the consignments to other sources in central and north Indian cities. “It is too early to come to any conclusions. The investigation is still going on to dig deep and only after a detailed analysis of the information gathered, we can get clarity,” the investigators said.

Meanwhile, multiple cases involving seizure of cocaine concealed in the form of pills ingested by air passengers have been booked by the DRI in the last four months, at Mumbai, Hyderabad and Tuticorin Port, Tamil Nadu. However, officials noted that this is not an alarming trend and attributed the seizures to the increase in air travel and international passenger movement and heightened vigil by the Law Enforcement Agencies in the country.

DRI has on Sunday seized 8 kg of cocaine worth Rs 80 crore and arrested two persons. Each passenger carried 4 kg cocaine in packet form by concealing them in the false bottom of their trolley bags. More than 350 kg of cocaine, was seized across the country after January, 2021.