The NCB recently caught a Nigerian national, who used to smuggle drugs by concealing them in the covers of hardbound books.
It was one undercover operation that took even the seasoned police by surprise. The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) recently caught Favour Orobi Kenneth, a Nigerian national, for possessing drugs and peddling them. That didn’t surprise them given the number of Nigerians arrested for the crime. What left them marvelling was the modus operandi used by him.
Police said Kenneth would buy hard-bound books, make a cavity in it’s cover to conceal drugs between the layers and seal it to be smuggled across to his clients in India and abroad through couriers. Every book would have roughly 50 gms of drugs between the layers. “So far they had been using all kinds of innovative ways of smuggling — tucked in the shoes, rectum, containers. This is a new one,” said a senior NCB official.
He said, “We caught on after a long time. Books are normally couriered, and after a cursory examination and security checks, are cleared. Kenneth knew no one would check the hard-bound cover of books.”
Kenneth’s luck ran out when an informer tipped NCB. “We came to know there is a drug pusher operating this way. But the NCB had to do much ground work before zeroing in on the accused,” the officer said. An NCB officer said Kenneth was in Delhi a few days ago and was to come to Mumbai to ‘courier’ a drugs consignment abroad. “We caught him in the act trying to courier a book from the office of a reputed courier firm in Bandra,” the officer said. In that consignment, Kenneth was trying to courier 750 grams of heroin. In the last one month, Kenneth had couriered more than eight books,” the officer said.
Interrogation revealed that Kenneth has been operating in India for many months. He couriered drugs to various parts of the country and to places like Spain, US, Europe, China and parts of Middle East. The police are now trying to find out who were Kenneth’s clients. Couriers are increasingly becoming popular for smugglers, if recent cases are any indication.
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