Even after the embarrassing episode of a Tanzanian national taking a flight from Mumbai to Malaysia carrying 1.3 kg heroin in his stomach, the Mumbai Airport authorities are still to procure equipment that can actually detect narcotics carried within a person’s body.
The Tanzanian national had flown to Malaysia from Mumbai on August 11. Though the man was carrying 1.3 kg heroin in 80-odd one-inch packets in his stomach, they went undetected by the newly installed Itemiser3 system-contraband detector at the Mumbai Airport. Though the 26-year-old man was able to give a slip to customs officials here, he slipped into coma after collapsing on board.
He was rushed to a hospital in Malaysia soon after the plane landed. An X-ray revealed that the man had packets of heroin in his stomach. The drugs, doctors said, had leaked into his stomach. The man was subsequently arrested on drug-trafficking charges.
Following the slip in the security procedure, the Mumbai Airport is now planning to install state-of-the-art walkthrough explosives and narcotics detectors in the next six months at an estimated cost of Rs Rs 68.5 lakh.
Mumbai customs officials had failed to detect the drugs carried by the Tanzanian national as the Rs 15-lakh-Itemiser3 system-contraband detector can detect drugs only in suspicious baggage and parcels, not when they are hidden in body.
In order to nab offenders such as in this case until now, customs officials have had to rely solely on tip-offs.
“We have to rely on our intelligence officers for information about suspects or on sniffer dogs,” G Ravindranath, additional commissioner, customs, said.
The Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) is currently waiting for approval from the aviation ministry and Bureau of Civil Aviation (BCAS) to install new narcotics detectors at the airport.
“We will install these walkthrough explosive and narcotics detectors within a period of six months,” Philip Cash, managing director, MIAL said.
These new detectors or ‘puffers’ will be used to scan only profiled passengers.
“It is difficult to scan or frisk all passengers that come to Mumbai Airport every day. Only those passengers who behave suspiciously will be scanned by this new device. The machine may not help us detect narcotics within the body, but it will definitely boost our security procedures,” a customs official said.
‘DRUG MULES’ WHO HAD GIVEN AIRPORT CUSTOMS A SLIP DEC 10, 2007, HEATHROW:The effectiveness of equipment and procedures designed to catch ‘drug mules’ had been called into question following the case of a woman who died when bags of smuggled cocaine burst inside her body hours after hi-tech screening at Heathrow Airport failed to pick up that she was carrying drugs.A post-mortem revealed that Nicola Last’s blood was “saturated” with cocaine, but customs officers did not spot that her body was packed with 34 bags of the class A drug, worth Rs 39 lakh.
JUNE 28, 1999, MUMBAI: Alhaji Soni Giwa managed to give Mumbai Airport authorities the slip even though he was carrying around 35 four-inch-long capsules containing heroin in his abdomen. Later, he was found unconscious near Santacruz station and was taken to hospital. When Giwa’s body was opened up for an autopsy, several small capsules were found in his abdominal cavity, one of which had burst open, the police said.These capsules were covered with tape and contained white powder, possibly heroin.