Nigerian held in city for sending drugs abroad via courier, but Customs officials in Delhi too busy with CWG to trace rest of gang
Nigerian held in city for sending drugs abroad via courier, but Customs officials in Delhi too busy with CWG to trace rest of gang
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A Nigerian involved in exporting cocaine to Australia, Canada, Indonesia, South Africa and Seychelles through courier services landed in a trap laid by officers from the Customs Commissionerate in the city. But the police are yet to trace his gang in Delhi since officers attached to the Narcotics Cell at the Customs Commissionerate in Delhi are busy with the ongoing Commonwealth Games.
Assistant Commissioner Customs S B Shinde, Superintendents D B More, B R Samad, Y D Kanjar, P I Satish Kulkarni and Kumar Punnose were part of the operation to trap the Delhi-based Nigerian, Ogonna Philip Nwchukwu (27).
Investigations revealed that drugs were sent by booking consignments with courier services by a group operating from Delhi.
Nwchukwu was arrested for exporting narcotics on October 9 and remanded in Customs custody till October 17.
The nexus of which Nwchukwu was a part used ingenious methods to hide drugs in samples of Indian artware.
Earlier, 375 grams of cocaine was seized from a consignment containing measuring tapes, which alerted Customs officers. After checking two consignments of paper lanterns and Indian artware, they seized 495 grams of drugs hidden in these.
This whole racket surfaced because the Narcotics Cell of the Customs Preventive Unit in the city received a call from a courier company after the employees working there saw a powder coming out of a sealed packet that contained measuring tapes to be sent to Australia.
The officers found the address and passport details of the person who had booked the consignment to be fake. The person was then called to the city on some pretext and arrested for exporting cocaine.
While frisking him, the officers found two more receipts of consignment bookings made with a different courier agency. Upon checking those consignments, they seized 495 grams of cocaine from packets contained paper lanterns and ceramic elephants.
Small pouches containing cocaine powder were sealed with duct tapes and hidden within the layers of folded paper lantern and stuffed in the belly of the elephants.
"This is the first time that cocaine has been seized in such a large quantity," said Commissioner of Customs R Sekar. "More importantly, earlier raids yielded narcotics which were to be used for personal consumption in Pune. But this recent recovery shows that drugs are being transported through courier services outside India through smaller cities like Pune."
Customs officers said a programme had been held recently for courier agencies in the city to sensitise them on the need to remain vigilant as there was a possibility of narcotics being sent through courier services.
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