Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Thai woman arrested with 4.9 kg of heroin

CHENNAI: Officials of the Air Intelligence Unit of the Customs arrested a 25-year-old Thailand woman after seizing heroin from her at the Chennai airport on Tuesday.

C. Rajan, Commissioner of Customs, Airport, said officials intercepted Punsakon Patcharut on suspicion. A search of her handbag revealed nothing, so the officials recalled her checked-in suitcase. The inner portion of the back end of the suitcase looked bulged a bit, and the inner cloth layer was found tampered with. Cutting open the inner cloth lining, the authorities found four polythene packets of heroin pasted on the top and bottom back ends of the suitcase.

The bags contained 4.9 kg of heroin. The passenger told the officials that she had gone to New Delhi from Thailand, where a stranger handed over a suitcase containing the drug.

The contraband would be received by someone at Kuala Lumpur. She tried to smuggle the contraband after she was promised a tourist trip to India.

This was the largest quantity of heroin seized by the Customs at the Chennai airport in the past decade, Mr Rajan added.

Enforcement authorities said officials of the Customs and the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) in New Delhi were keeping a vigil on the movement of drug pedlars and carriers, forcing them to opt for other airports.

The last two seizures effected by the Customs and DRI authorities in Chennai have revealed that the smugglers use the services of Southeast Asian women.

Both the Customs and DRI officials have done a good profiling of passengers, leading to the seizure of contraband.

Most of the arrested persons were only carriers; in the case of women arrested by the Customs and DRI authorities, they were not even aware of those behind the operations. They would get the contraband from a stranger and paid for carrying the drug from one country to another, an enforcement officer said.

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