Nigerian smuggles cocaine in tummy, arrested

It took threats of opening his stomach with an operation that made an air passenger confess that he was carrying contraband worth Rs 6 lakh in his body. Now he is cooling his heels in police custody.

On Friday morning, the Santa Cruz airport police arrested Nigerian Ebica Pious, 37, for smuggling in cocaine worth Rs6 lakh. “Pious was booked on a Kingfisher Red flight from Mumbai to Goa, which was to leave at 5 am. While he was being frisked by a Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) guard, the metal detector beeped, indicating there was some banned substance in his body,” a Santa Cruz station officer said.

The CISF guards sent for a Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) doctor who checked Pious and said there was something in his stomach. “The doctor and the CISF questioned the passenger, but he refused to say anything. The guards then handed him over to the police,” an airport officer said. “Till the time of going to hospital, the passenger’s mobile had not been confiscated.”

The cops took Pious to BL Nair Hospital, and the doctors told him that they would operate on his stomach and find the substance. When they were taking an X-ray of him, Pious admitted he was carrying four capsules in his stomach. “He told the doctors he had come to Mumbai on October 10 and met a man named Vijay. The man had given him the capsules to be delivered to someone in Goa,” says the cop. The cocaine that weighed 200 gm was meant for New Year’s celebrations there. “The capsules were put inside his stomach through the anus,” the officer added.

Pious was charged under the NDPS Act and remanded to police custody for seven days.