Maharashtra: Customs seize drugs worth Rs 9 crore from passenger at Nagpur airport

Representative image

On Thursday morning, the customs department at Nagpur International Airport made an announcement stating that they had apprehended a traveller who was arriving from Uganda after seizing drugs worth Rs 8.81 crore.

In a statement, Nagpur customs said that around three in the morning, the 45-year-old man from Tamil Nadu was stopped by authorities after arriving from Uganda via Doha on a Qatar Airways flight. While trying to use the green lane without declaring any goods to customs, the passenger was caught, reported PTI.

After Chandrayan 3, ISRO now prepping to launch Aditya L1 mission to the sun in August

1 year agoPHOTO GALLERY

The PTI report further stated that the customs sleuths, seeing the passenger's suspicious demeanour, performed a comprehensive search of his belongings. During the check, they uncovered suspicious objects in his baggage, including a dummy propeller and two plate-shaped discs.

A closer look revealed that the dummy propeller and discs contained white and yellow powdered particles. Subsequent testing with a drug detection kit revealed that the compounds were methaqualone, an illegal sedative-hypnotic narcotic, the report added.

The passenger was then arrested under the terms of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS). An additional inquiry into the problem is presently underway, stated the PTI report.

Meanwhile, in another incident from Thane district on Friday, the police seized gutka worth roughly Rs 50 lakh from a truck and arrested a driver.

Per another PTI report, the Narpoli police had intercepted the vehicle on Dapoda road in Bhiwandi on Thursday afternoon and discovered it to be filled with gutka of various brands worth roughly Rs 50 lakh.

The police said they seized the package and truck while the driver, identified as Ajaykumar Shyampal Singh, aged 28, was arrested. The probe is underway to determine the consignment's origin and destination.

In another unrelated incident, the Navi Mumbai police filed a complaint against five individuals for allegedly defrauding a date dealer from Iran of approximately Rs 4.3 crore, an officer said on Friday.

The PTI report stated that the accused, including the owners of two trade companies, obtained dates from the complainant but reportedly never paid him, he claimed.

After receiving the complaint, the Navi Mumbai police's Economic Offences Wing conducted a preliminary investigation, and on Thursday, a cheating case was filed against the accused at the APMC police station in Navi Mumbai, the PTI report stated.