Man held with date rape drug at airport

The Air Intelligence Unit (AIU) of the Customs Department arrested Mohammad Ali Mohammad Sultan, a Chennai-based smuggler, on Monday night moments before he could fly out of India with a consignment of 25 kg of Ketamine Hydrochloride powder, a popular date rape drug.

Sultan was about to board the 9.30 pm Thai Airways flight to Kuala Lumpur before he was nabbed.

According to AIU, Sultan tried to pass off the powder, worth Rs25 lakh in the international market, as dough used to prepare idlis and dosas.

The Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) launched a probe into large quantities of the material that had gone missing last year from Dawa Bazaar, the pharmaceutical hub located in south Mumbai.

The FDA found that the drug was being smuggled to China, Malaysia and European countries, where the drug fetches nearly ten times its price.

In November 2005, a South African model was raped by two persons who spiked her drink with the odourless and tasteless Ketamine Hydrochloride powder. The men had befriended her at a city hotel.

When she fell unconscious, they took her outside city limits and raped her.