A female passenger aboard a Kenya Airways flight to Mumbai was arrested after she allegedly attempted to smuggle heroin work Ksh127 million.
The suspect, Rukshana Shaikh, was arrested by India’s Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) shortly after landing in Mumbai from Harare through Nairobi.
Shaikh’s arrest followed after the officials who examined her luggage found granules that tested positive for heroin.
“On testing with narcotics field testing kit, the substance tested positive for the presence of ‘heroin’, a narcotic drug covered under the NDPS Act,1985,” the official said.
Upon interrogation, the suspect revealed that she was given the drugs by someone in Harare to deliver to two people in Mumbai.
The officials were able to arrest the two recipients who were waiting to receive the drugs at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport.
It is reported that the duo had a previous case of asking passengers to smuggle drugs from Kenya and Zimbabwe to India.
The two revealed that they acted on instructions from a Nigerian national based in New Delhi.
The latest comes barely months after six Somali suspects were arrested by Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) customs agents at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) for attempting to smuggle USD857,300 (KSh103 million) from India.
The six, who were all women, included; Hafsa Warsame Kuresha, Abdi Hassan Arfon, Abdi Farah Sarah Ahmen Omar, Hassan Habiba Abdi, and Hodhan Mohammed.
They were nabbed shortly after landing at the airport aboard Ethiopian Airlines flight number ET 318.
The agency says they discovered the cash after scanning their luggage.
“On October 6, 2022, while clearing Ethiopian Airline flight Number ET 318, some six women of Somali origin arrived at the Customs area. They had with them luggage containing shoes and clothes. As usual, the bags were scanned to establish what they contained,” part of KRA statement read.
Adding;
“The images showed items that looked like currency. Upon secondary verification, it was confirmed that the luggage contained us currency amounting to 857,300USD.”
