A Kenyan has been arrested in India for allegedly being found with cocaine worth Sh8m. The woman had arrived in India on 28th December.
The woman passenger was arrested at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, carrying 1.4 kilos of cocaine valued at approximately Sh8 million, officials reported.
Cases of drug trafficking is said to have been on the rise in 2023, and Kenya is said to be at the heart of the illegal business. For instance, in 2019, then European Union Ambassador to Kenya Simon Mordue said the Kenyan port of Mombasa accounted for 30 per cent of illegal heroin smuggled into the EU market.
Most of the heroin in the country originates from Afghanistan through the Indian Ocean while cocaine originates from South America.
In 2016, Kenyan security agencies seized the second-biggest haul of cocaine weighing 100 kilos and valued at Sh598 million in Mombasa that was disguised as sugar.
The Kenyan national arrived via a Kenya Airways flight from Nairobi to Mumbai on December 28, Thursday, and was apprehended by Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) officers.
“The ingenious concealment of the drugs involved two black polythene packets cleverly placed within a hair conditioner bottle and a body wash bottle,” DRI said according to local media.
The arrest has exposed Kenya as a wide narcotic transit route for the probably destined for Europe and Asia.
