Heroin worth Rs 70 crore seized at Chennai airport; two African ladies arrested

Around 10 kg heroin worth  ₹ 70 crores has been seized at Chennai International Airport following which, two African ladies were arrested. Based on the information that narcotics drugs are likely to be smuggled into India, a high alert was maintained at the Airport. Two young African lady passengers who had arrived by Qatar Airways flight 528 from Johannesburg via Doha were intercepted at the exit on suspicion of carrying narcotics.

"Total 9.87 kg of white coarse powder suspected to be Heroin approximately valued at Rs. 70 crores in the International market, was recovered and seized under NDPS Act 1985, read with Customs Act,"  an official read. 

Since one of them was using a wheelchair despite appearing to be fit physically, the officials interrogated the two and checked their baggage, the release said. The check yielded eight plastic packets concealed in the baggage that contained powder which was heroin.

One of the women was traveling for medical treatment in New Delhi along with her attendant on a visa which was granted on the basis of communication from the hospital. Due to the COVID-19 scare in New Delhi, the passengers landed in Chennai.

COVID In TN 

Tamil Nadu logged 21,410 new COVID-19 cases and 443 fatalities on Saturday, pushing the tally to 22.16 lakh and the toll to 26,571. Recoveries continued to outnumber fresh cases with 32,472 people getting discharged, taking the total number to 19,32,788, leaving 2,57,463 active cases, a health department bulletin said. The number of cases has seen a declining trend since May 21 when the state recorded an all-time high of 36,184 infections. On May 30, the state saw its daily cases dropping below the 30,000 marks. On Saturday, Coimbatore district recorded the maximum number of 2,663 cases, followed by Chennai with 1,789, Erode 1,569, Salem 1,171, and Tiruppur 1,104.

The state capital leads in the number of total infections among districts with 5,15,018 cases overall and also in fatalities, with 7,425 deaths to date. A total of 1,75,365 samples were tested today, pushing the cumulative number of specimens examined so far to just over 2.85 crores. Chengalpet, Cuddalore, Kanyakumari, Nagapattinam, Namakkal, Nilgiris, Thanjavur, Tiruvallur, Tiruchirappalli, reported new cases each in excess of 500, while the rest was scattered across other districts.