Man held at Mumbai airport with cocaine valued at Rs 33.60cr
Darpan News Desk IANS, 01 Feb, 2023 01:29 PM
New Delhi, Feb 1 (IANS) The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) on Wednesday arrested an air passenger from the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport here for possessing 3,360 gram cocaine valued at Rs 33.60 crore.
A DRI official said that they got a specific intelligence tip off that an Indian national arriving from Addis Ababa to Mumbai by Ethiopian Airlines flight might be carrying a narcotic substance.
The DRI intercepted that passenger following the tip-off.
"On examination of his luggage, 16 small soap boxes were recovered. On thorough examination of soap boxes, the officials observed that something is concealed beneath the wax like layer of the soaps. Officers removed the outer wax layer and found a soap bar wrapped in a transparent plastic. The officers scratched the soap cake and a powdery substance was found concealed. The same was tested with a narcotics field testing kit and tested positive for cocaine," the official said.
The DRI said: "Net weight of the recovered substance was 3,360 grams valued at Rs 33.60 crore."
Also in attendance were Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi. On December 13, 2001, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorists had attacked the Parliament complex, in which nine persons including police and security personnel were killed.
A 48-year-old man, absconding for the past 10 years in a case of rash driving and endangering people's life, has been nabbed by Delhi Police in South Delhi's Saket area, an official said on Tuesday. The accused has been identified as Shyam Kumar Awasthi, a resident of village Mahgaura near Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh.
A senior police official said that they received a complaint in this respect from a 62-year-old woman that an unknown person sent her friend request. Later, the person shared one international WhatsApp number for chatting. After few days, the same person offered her valuable gifts like an Iphone, gold plated wrist watch etc.
Four of the accused in the case -- Faizal Abdul, Vasif Chaudhary, Sagar Pal and Aniket Sindhe-- were arrested on Monday on the information provided by Mubarak Badia and Chandan, who were arrested for possessing drugs worth Rs 3.97 crore from Surat in November.
In a letter, he apprised the Governor that post of Senior Superintendent of Police in Chandigarh has traditionally been occupied by a Punjab-cadre IPS oficer, while an IAS officer of Haryana cadre had been appointed as the Deputy Commissioner.
The accused is Sunny Dilip Lal Sharma alias Manav Govind. While he had secured an identity in the name of Manav Govind to smuggle gold this time, it was revealed that he had been using six different identities. The DRI team recovered 862 grams of gold worth Rs 46 lakh from him. He was later handed over to the Gomti Nagar police.