The Delhi Police on Wednesday claimed to have made one of the biggest seizures of pure cocaine after they arrested a Peruvian national from outside Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport as he was trying to smuggle around 1,300 gram of the banned drug which was concealed in the cavity and pipes of his trolley bag. The accused was part of an international drug trafficking module and was involved in supply of cocaine into Delhi from Brazil. The contraband is stated to be valued around Rs6.5 crore in the international market.
Earlier, the Delhi Police had mistakenly valued the seized cocaine to be worth Rs65 crore. However, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Ravindra Yadav later clarified that it was worth Rs6.5 crore. The accused, identified as Armando lopes Reyes (64), was arrested on a tip off on Monday as he exited the airport after he arrived from Sao Paulo, Brazil via Dubai. “1,295 gram of high quality cocaine was recovered from him. The consignment is one of the biggest seizures of ‘pure cocaine’ in the history of Delhi Police. The highly lucrative route of Brazil-Sao Paulo-Delhi has been identified which was being used by the drug traffickers,” Yadav said.
They were concealed in cavities of trolley bag and wrapped in four layers of plastic, silver foil, black PVC, rapper to avoid X-ray detection, he added. On Monday, the Crime Branch had got a tip off that one Peruvian National namely Armando lopes Reyes, who had visited India earlier also, would be coming to T3 Terminal of Delhi’s IGI Airport from Brazil.
“A trap was laid outside T3 Terminal and at the instance of the informer, the accused was apprehended. The team tried to communicate with him but the person feigned ignorance of English. Despite efforts of the team to communicate with him, he continued to be uncooperative,” he said.
Reyes was apprehended and brought to the office of ISC Chanakyapuri office of the Crime Branch, and one Spanish interpreter was arranged. After completing the legal procedures and formalities, search of his two trolley bags was conducted and apparently it was found to be having his personal clothing.
However, the information police had received was very reliable and cops were extremely confident about the possibility of him carrying major haul of drugs. On minute checking, it was noticed that all the screws used for attaching the iron/plastic base having wheels fitting with storage part appeared to be brand new.
Thereafter, the screws were dismantled and the cavities in the trolley pipes, handles, etc were opened. The pipes and plastic parts of the trolley base were found to be containing multiple small packets.
All the concealed packets of both the bags were carefully taken out and small packets having semi-solid white material packed in four layers of plastic, silver foil, plastic rapper and then black PVC plastic tape to save the consignment from X-ray detection and other scanners were found.
The recovered material was tested and was found to be pure cocaine. The total weight of the recovered material came to be 1,295 gram. After completing the seizure formalities, a case under appropriate sections of NDPS Act was registered and investigations were taken up.
According to police, on interrogation through the interpreter, the accused disclosed that the bags had been given to him by one Juan in Sao Paulo, Brazil to hand over these to one Ali in Delhi. He was given $1,000 by Juan and another $500 was promised on his return back to Sao Paulo, said Yadav.
His passport was checked and it was found that he had earlier traveled to India thrice in the months of May, July and October last year. Interrogation of the accused is being done to unearth the whole racket of drugs syndicate being operated from South America and also having its tentacles in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America, said Yadav.