The Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) of Customs at the Mumbai International airport arrested a 21-year-old South African girl for trying to smuggle around 1.6 kg of heroin in her luggage.
AIU officials had received a tip-off that a traveller was trying to smuggle drugs in a flight going to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The accused, identified as Thulile Goodness Dhlamini, was going to board an Ethiopian Airlines flight on Wednesday. When AIU officials checked her baggage, they found heroin worth about Rs1.6 crore concealed in a cavity created in her suitcase.
Dhlamini revealed that she came to India 15 days ago and then went to Delhi where some unidentified people gave her the contraband drug on Tuesday. After that, she left for Mumbai on the same day to leave for Addis Ababa. She revealed that from Addis Ababa, she was going to Harare where she had to deliver the drug to another person.
A senior AIU official said Dhlamini had revealed that this was the first time that she was trying to smuggle drugs and it was on some other person’s directions.
According to AIU officials, the drug mafia operating in the African countries uses poor men and women as carriers for drug parcels for a small amount of money. They are offered a small amount in advance and rest is handed over to them on delivery of the drug.
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