A 29-year-old Moureen Namara is behind bars after allegedly found with 1.76kg of drugs. Namara, who was travelling to India using Ethiopia Airlines, was intercepted by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) after she landed at the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) on Tuesday morning.
She boarded Etihad Airways Flight EY286 to connect her to Bengaluru but she was disembarked. According to Times of India, a local newspaper, Namara had hidden the contraband inside soap packets and a shampoo bottle, which are estimated to be worth a staggering Rs 11 crore (About sh6billion).
Following a tip-off, NCB officials began combing KIA early in the morning. “We had specific intelligence that cocaine worth crores of rupees is being brought in by a passenger at the behest of a local dealer here. So we profiled every passenger arriving from the Gulf,” Times of India quoted a senior NCB officer.
Moureen holds a Ugandan passport and had a business visa to travel to India. The local newspaper said when the officials asked her why she was visiting India, she fumbled with answers, raising suspicion.
This prompted the NCB team to examined her checked-in luggage, a shampoo bottle and six cakes of bathing soap.
“The packaging looked as if it had been tampered with. We cut, opened the shampoo bottle and the soaps and found they were packed with cocaine,” the officer added.
New Interpol report pins Ugandans to lead as drug smugglers
A new report by Interpol, puts Ugandans as top drug smugglers. The report was done in 2017, showing that drugs worth sh5b were intercepted at Entebbe International Airport.
The report pins eight Ugandans who were arrested while smuggling out part of the intercepted drugs worth Shs4b.
The figures compiled by the drug trafficking desk was done between January and December last year.
