| Rs 1,150 Crore Cocaine seized off Gujarat coast; 3 foreigners held | |    |  Early Times Report
AHMEDABAD, May 27: In a major drug haul, the Gujarat ATS and the Indian Coast Guard have busted an international trafficking network, seizing 115 kg of cocaine valued at nearly Rs 1,150 crore from a vessel off Mundra port, and apprehended three foreign nationals, officials said on Wednesday.
The consignment travelled through Latin America, Mexico, the United States and Karachi (in Pakistan) before the cargo vessel ‘Europe’ anchored near Mundra port in Kutch district, Gujarat’s Director General of Police KLN Rao said at a press conference here.
According to one of the accused, the contraband was loaded onto the vessel in Brazil and secretly hidden in the motor room in November last year without the knowledge of other crew members, the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) said.
While a Tanzanian national named Juma Nasir Omar was arrested from the boat, the Gujarat ATS, with help from Delhi police, apprehended from the national capital’s Dwarka area two other foreign nationals who were supposed to take the delivery, he said.
Search was on for another suspect, also a Tanzanian national, who jumped into the sea during the operation, the DGP added.
GPS devices, satellite communication equipment and AirTags were also seized from the consignment bags, indicating the contraband may have been electronically tracked during transit, officials said.
The Anti-Terrorist Squad and the Coast Guard jointly carried out the operation following specific intelligence inputs gathered by an ATS officer about a large consignment of cocaine being smuggled from Brazil via the maritime route, Rao said.
Acting on the intelligence, ATS officers rushed to Mundra on the night of May 25 and coordinated with the Coast Guard for a joint operation.
“In the early hours of May 26, the joint team intercepted the vessel ‘Europe’ at the outer anchorage and initiated a search operation,” Rao said.
During the operation, the team learned that six bags containing narcotics had been concealed aboard the ship. As the Coast Guard vessel approached, two crew members on deck allegedly threw several heavy bags into the sea.
Officials said five floating bags were successfully recovered from the water despite poor visibility, while one bag could not be traced. Preliminary testing of samples using a drug detection kit confirmed the substance to be cocaine, they said.
A total of around 115 packets weighing nearly 115 kg were recovered from the five bags, the officials said. The estimated value of the seized cocaine is around Rs 1,150 crore, calculated at roughly Rs 10 crore per kg in the international market, they said.
The ATS team also recovered four Apple AirTags from the seized bags, indicating the narcotics consignment may have been electronically tracked during transit, Rao said. Two Tanzanian nationals aboard the vessel, identified as Ngingite Nassoro Jumanne and Juma Nasir Omar, were allegedly transporting the cocaine shipment, the DGP said.
The contraband was meant to be handed over at sea and delivered further to two Delhi-based persons — Kelvin Chukwuama and Bairunge James — who are Nigerian and Ugandan nationals, respectively, an ATS release said.
“Currently, three accused are in police custody – one apprehended from the vessel and the two intended receivers detained from Delhi,” Rao said. The ATS teams, with assistance from Delhi Police, caught two suspects from the Dwarka area of Delhi and were bringing them to Gujarat for further investigation, he said.
One of the crew members working in the vessel’s steam motor room, who had allegedly hidden the cocaine consignment inside the ship, jumped into the sea after spotting the ATS and Coast Guard teams, the DGP said.
Search operations involving the Coast Guard are still underway to trace the missing suspect, Tanzanian national Jumanne, he added. | | |
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