Customs seizes marijuana worth nearly Rs 9 crore at Delhi airport

Customs officers at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport have arrested two Indian passengers for allegedly smuggling suspected marijuana worth nearly Rs 9 crore from Vietnam, officials said on Thursday.

The passengers arrived from Vietnam on May 5 and were intercepted at the Green Channel "on the basis of profiling", an official statement said.

"During the search, a total of 17 packets of assorted ready-to-eat snacks containing green-coloured narcotic substance suspected to be ganja/marijuana were recovered from one black and one green trolley bag," the statement said.

Officials said the total net weight of the seized substance was 8,957 grams, with its value in the illicit market estimated at around Rs 8.95 crore.

Field testing of the recovered substance "indicated positive results for ganja/marijuana (prima facie)", the statement said.

Accordingly, both passengers were arrested and the contraband along with packaging material was seized under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, it added.