500 kg parcel of narcotics found unclaimed at airport

“The consignment arrived from Ethiopia in three installments since December 2017. The first parcel had 14 boxes. The second parcel had 10 boxes and arrived in February. The last parcel of one box arrived last week. There are 25 boxes in all, each weighing 20 kg. All look similar and are addressed to the same person, who does not exist,” sources said.

Information available indicated that the consignment address was fake, while the phone number in the address remained ‘not in use’ for weeks. 

Only after the phone number and the address were found to be fake did the authorities become suspicious and decided to send a sample for lab test. The Air Customs officers were told that the dry leaves were high quality marijuana. Since then, the officials had been waiting for someone to claim the parcel. However, nobody has turned up so far.

The officials even tried to contact the sender’s address with the help of Ethiopian agencies and found that it, too, was not genuine. Sources said the particular variety of marijuana was a high quality strain, and suspect that the smugglers could have been trying to get a foothold in the region with the imported ganja.

The agencies were trying to locate the sender in a bid to get more information about the subversive trade, sources said. 

worth gold Customs department officers at the Chennai Airport seized 68 gold bars weighing 7.9 kg valued Rs 2.5 crore from a passenger who arrived from Dubai on Thursday. While on surveillance at aero bridge at arrival terminal, members of Air Intelligence Unit found the passenger with a walking suspiciously. The officers followed him for 400 meters and intercepted him at the exit gate of arrival hall. When checked, the passenger, Umar Syed (24) and found 24-carat 7.9 kg gold. He was arrested under provisions of Customs Act.

A 12.9 kg consignment, booked by a Chennai-based exporter, was seized by the customs at Kempegowda International Airport here on Thursday. The banned drug, Methaqualone, was worth Rs 6.45 Crore. An official release said the drug was packed with a cargo of palm sugar to be shipped to Kuala Lumpur. The stated worth was Rs 6,000 and was declared for ‘personal use.’ It was a FedEx courier, sources said. Customs officials grew suspicious and found the drug in small plastic packets inside the palm sugar consignment.