African woman flier held with 1 kg cocaine

NCB South Zone Director Prem Anand Sinha, in a release here on Saturday said acting on specific information, the NCB officials intercepted one Princess Ntombifuthi Msomi, a South African, when she arrived from Sao Paulo in Brazil, at the Chennai airport and seized 1.075 kg of cocaine from her possession. She was travelling from Sao Paulo to Chennai via Abu Dhabi. 

She came by a tourist visa and was planning to leave the country after delivering the consignment. The seized cocaine was concealed in the form of 82 capsules and was swallowed by her. 

“This type of modus operandi was usually performed by the experts, who can swallow around 200 capsules and can also keep the capsules up to 48 hours in their stomach,” Sinha said. The seized contraband was worth around Rs 5 crore in the illegal market. The seized cocaine is of very pure form and was sourced directly from the production belt in South America and Msomi was believed to be working under the behest of the South American Cocaine cartel. Further investigations were underway to find out her links in Chennai, Sinha said.