Man hides heroin in condoms, held at Chennai Airport

The passenger, a 35-year-old man and a resident of Ramanathapuram, was to travel from Chennai airport to Colombo when he was detained by CISF guards and subjected to physical examination, said airport sources. Though CISF initially wanted to hand over the case to the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), it was decided against it, as the agency was not keen on the case because the quantity of the drug was less than 250 gm. 

“NCB usually does not pick up cases which are less in quantity. For the narcotics agency to take the case, the quantity should be at least 250 gm, which is considered as a sizeable quantity,” noted an NCB official. In the second case of seizure of gold, a Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) team had seized four and a half kg of gold bars, worth over Rs 1.35 crore from a woman and her daughter, who arrived in Sharjah – Thiruvananthapuram -  Chennai flight. 

The two women were carrying gold concealed in their clothing when the DRI team intercepted them at the arrival point. They were expecting walk through without being checked as they were domestic travellers. But the DRI had information saying that the two were carrying smuggled gold handed to them by another passenger who travelled in the same flight from Sharjah.

It may be recalled that in October, customs officials had seized gold chains weighing 600 gm, 4 Iphone-8, 3 Samsung Galaxy Note 8 and an Ipad, totally worth over Rs 22.3 lakh, from two women domestic passengers who arrived at Chennai airport from Thiruvananthapuram, in a flight originated from Sharjah. In the incident, the Customs officials had caught the passenger who was smuggling the gold and electronic items from Sharjah along with two women passengers. The smugglers are using domestic passengers to take the contraband out of the airport as they are usually not scrutinised by the Customs officials. Despite increased vigil by various agencies and high number of seizure of gold and narcotics, the smugglers are still using Chennai airport as a major transit hub for their activities. They keep trying different modus operandi to dodge the enforcement agencies.