Delhi woman held for trying to smuggle heroin worth ₹54 cr from Zambia

Mumbai The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) officials have arrested a 30-year-old Delhi woman at the Mumbai international airport for allegedly trying to smuggle in heroin worth ₹54 crore from Zambia.

The woman, during her interrogation, also admitted that in January this year, she had successfully smuggled the contraband from Zambia to Mumbai via Addis Ababa. She had received around ₹3 lakh for the work, said a DRI officer. She was lured into smuggling by a Delhi-based foreigner woman, who had arranged her air tickets and accommodation abroad. The agency is on the lookout for her.

Based on specific intelligence, DRI Mumbai officials on Tuesday intercepted the passenger, who had come from Addis Ababa to Mumbai via an Ethiopian flight.

“On checking her luggage, 7.6 kg of a powder-like substance was found hidden in her trolley bag. On checking the substance on field-testing kit, it turned out to be heroin,” said a DRI source. The seized contraband material is worth around ₹54 crore in the illicit market.

The passenger was subsequently arrested on Wednesday. During interrogation, she revealed that she was lured into smuggling by a Delhi-based woman, who had introduced her to a foreigner woman in Delhi in December last year. The foreigner offered to give her ₹3 lakh per trip as commission if she successfully smuggled contraband from Zambia to India, said the DRI source.

After the arrested woman expressed her desire to carry out smuggling, the foreigner arranged air tickets and the visa for her, and in a hotel in Zambia, she was handed over a bag that was to be taken to India. The woman took the travel bag, and on arriving in Mumbai via Ethiopian flight, she was apprehended by the DRI.

“The arrested woman understood that she was smuggling banned drugs into the country, and hence, she has been booked under relevant sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985. We have secured her three days of custody remand from the court to extract more information about her associates,” said Amit Mundhe, special public prosecutor for the DRI.