In one of the largest seizures of pure cocaine, a Peruvian national was arrested from outside IGI airport here as he was trying to smuggle around 1,300 gram of the banned drug which was concealed in the cavity and pipes of his trolley bag.
Delhi Police claimed to have busted an international drug trafficking module involved in supply of cocaine into Delhi from Brazil.
The contraband is stated to be valued around Rs 6.5 crore in the international market.
Police had earlier mistakenly valued the seized cocaine to be worth Rs 65 crore. However, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Ravindra Yadav later clarified that it was worth Rs 6.5 crore.
The accused, identified as Armando Lopes Reyes (64), was arrested on Monday as he exited the airport following a tip off after he arrived from Sao Paulo, Brazil via Dubai.
"1295 gram of high quality cocaine was recovered from him. The consignment is one of the biggest seizures of "Pure Cocaine" in the history of Delhi Police. The highly lucrative route of Brazil-Sao Paulo-Delhi has been identified which was being used by the drug traffickers," Yadav said.
They were concealed in cavities of trolley bag and wrapped in four layers of plastic, silver foil, black PVC, rapper to avoid X ray detection, he added.
On Monday, Crime Branch had got a tip off that one Peruvian National namely Armando Lopes Reyes, who had visited India earlier also, would be coming to T3 terminal Delhi IGI Airport from Brazil.
"A trap was laid outside T3 Terminal and at the instance of the informer, the accused was apprehended. The team tried to communicate with him but the person feigned ignorance of English. Despite efforts of the team to communicate with him, he continued to be uncooperative," he said.
Reyes was apprehended and brought to the office of ISC at Chanakyapuri, and one Spanish interpreter was arranged. After completing the legal procedures and formalities, search of his two trolley bags was conducted and apparently it was found to be having his personal clothing.
However, the information police had received was very reliable and cops were hundred per cent sure that he was carrying major haul of drugs. On minute checking, it was noticed that all the screws used for attaching the iron/plastic base having wheels fitting with storage part appeared to be brand new.
Thereafter, the screws were dismantled and the cavities in the trolley pipes, handles, etc were opened. The pipes and plastic parts of the trolley base were found to be containing multiple small packets.
All the concealed packets of both the bags were carefully taken out and small packets having semi solid white material packed in four layers of plastic, silver foil, plastic rapper and then black PVC plastic tape to save the consignment from X-Ray detection and other scanners were found.
