Four Foreign Nationals Arrested With Cocaine Worth Rs. 39 Crore

MUMBAI: The police have arrested three Nigerian men alongwith a Brazilian woman and seized cocaine worth around Rs. 39 crore from their possession,a senior official said on Sunday.

The accused were about to send the drug to South Africa, the police said.

A team of Amboli police nabbed the accused from the Maurya Estate road in suburban Andheri on Saturday night and recovered drugs worth Rs. 38.95 crore, the official said.

The accused were identified as Neras Pokhogo (35), Michael Hop (29), Simon Agobata (32), all Nigerians; and Karle Ires (41), a woman from Brazil.

The cocaine allegedly seized from their possession was supposed to be sent to Johannesburg in South Africa.

The accused were arrested when they were heading for the office of a courier company to dispatch the consignment.

Senior police official Manoj Kumar Sharma said the accused concealed narcotic drugs in rings and pipes of curtains. These drug-loaded consignments of curtains would be then sent abroad through courier companies.

The police were probing whether courier company officials were aware of this racket, Mr Sharma added.

The accused were booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. A local court remanded them in seven-day police custody.

A police official said that Pokhogo was already facing a drug case in neighbouring Thane, while Ires, the Brazilian national, had come out of prison recently after serving a jail term in an NDPS case.