INDIA. Mumbai: A woman from South Africa was apprehended at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International airport (CSMIA), with nearly three kilograms of heroin worth Rs 9 crore in the international market, by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), on Thursday.
The accused was identified as Khanyisile Promise Khalishwayo. Besides the banned drug, 10,000 South African rands in cash were also recovered from her.
Khanyisile who has been involved in drug-peddling for the last 4 years and was operating in South Africa and the Middle East area came to India for the first time. She was to get 20,000 rands (equivalent to Rs.one lakh) for the present assignment. NCB officials are probing to whom she was to deliver the consignment.
Based on specific intelligence inputs, the NCB laid a trap at the passenger arrival area of the airport in the early hours of Thursday. During the operation, Khanyisile, who travelled from Johannesburg to Mumbai via Doha by Qatar Airways flight(No. QR 0556), was caught.
After intercepting her on arrival, the NCB team, led by Zonal Director Sameer Wankhede, searched her grey-colored trolley-bag and found that a cavity was created inside it. During the search of her bag, two packets of heroin were found concealed in the cavity of her bag, while one more packet was found concealed in the bag itself. The total weight of the three packets containing heroin was 2.960 kg.
She was booked under section 8(c) and 21 (c) of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, Wankhede told the Transcontinental Times adding that further investigations were on.
Harmful heroin
Heroin (Die-Acetyl Morphine) is an opioid drug made from morphine, a natural substance in the seed pod of the poppy plant. It can be mixed with water and injected with a needle. Heroin can also be smoked or snorted up the nose. All of these ways of taking heroin to send it to the brain very quickly. This makes it very addictive. Major health problems from heroin include miscarriages, heart infections, and death from overdose. People who inject the drug, also risk getting infectious diseases, including HIV/AIDS and hepatitis.
In a similar seizure last week, two women from Uganda and a Nigerian were arrested with eight kilograms of Heroin and one kg of cocaine by the Delhi Zonal Unit of NCB thus busting an international drug-smuggling ring at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi.
