In the largest drug seizure this year, anti-narcotics sleuths have arrested a Nigerian from a five-star hotel here and recovered high quality 'party drugs' worth Rs 40 crore smuggled from abroad.
The Nigerian, identified as Amobi Chijioke Obianika, was arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) yesterday when he was taking the delivery of a suitcase containing 8 kg of 'cocaine' at a popular high-end lodging address in south Delhi.
Seizure of such a large consignment of cocaine is a rare and huge catch as this class of narcotic stimulants are very potent and much desired for by the drug abusers and peddler syndicates worldwide including in India.
"The drug that has been seized is used as a stimulant in parties and rave get togethers and the quality is of a very high market value. This is the largest ever seizure of high quality cocaine this year and the haul is estimated to be around Rs 40 crore," NCB Deputy Director General (DDG) R P Singh told reporters here.
According to Singh, Obianika deployed a clever modus operandi of not carrying the drug consignment with himself when he arrived from Nigeria on September 26 but rather booked it on a separate flight which was supposed to be delivered by an airline courier a day later at his luxury room in the hotel.
The Nigerian has been arrested under the stringent provisions of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act even as the agency is looking for the 'potential customers' of this illegal consignment.
"We have deployed a special vigil after recent reports of illegal drugs being supplied to students came to light," Singh said.
A young student Anmol Sarna had recently died in the national capital in a suspected case of drug overdose and reports said that narcotics of the 'LSD' category was supplied to a bunch of students by peddlers.
NCB said the operation to crack this case was formulated on the basis of a vital input and the sleuths kept watch on Obianika for over 24-hours before they caught him red handed at his hotel room.
The Nigerian suspect did not receive the baggage immediately from the airline courier when he arrived at the hotel but kept him waiting at the hotel lobby, officials said.
After about 40 minutes he called the courier boy to his room and as he was taking the suitcase in, NCB sleuths deployed undercover in the hotel nabbed him.
