Flyer with 100g heroin hidden in condom held

TNN | Updated: Nov 9, 2017, 00:52 IST

Chennai: It was a plan high at least on ambition, but a 35-year-old man who on Wednesday morning tried to smuggle heroin to Colombo ended up in pretty low spirits after security personnel at Chennai International Airport discovered the consignment he had concealed in a place he reckoned would be safe from checks.

Security officers said CISF guards conducting security checks at the airport stopped and checked Muhammed Sabir, a storekeeper in an engineering college in Chennai, after they noticed that "his pelvic area appeared to be unusually large". The CISF personnel took Sabir aside and frisked him.

"The search revealed that he had hidden 100g of heroin in a condom that he had attached to his penis with a rubber band," said an officer involved in the case.

The CISF guards who caught Sabir handed him over to airport customs officials. Officials have detained the Chennai resident. The customs department is likely to file a case and carry out a detailed probe into Sabir's attempt to smuggle heroin to Sri Lanka, an official statement said.

"Sabir, we believe, was carrying the heroin on behalf of a Sri Lankan narcotics trafficking cartel," the officer said. "We will send the contraband to a lab for tests to determine the purity of the seized drug."

If it is high quality heroin, it could be worth more than Rs 10 lakh for 100g in retail in the international market, he said. Other experts noted if the cartel intended to smuggle the heroin to the West, the consignment could be worth even more.

"Though the price of heroin in the West, has fallen steeply since the 1990s, drug enforcement authorities in the United States estimate that medium quality heroin has a street value of around $200/g in an American city," one expert said. "If this heroin is of high purity, that would make make this consignment worth much more than Rs 13 lakh."

Officers with knowledge of Wednesday's case said interrogating Sabir could provide the customs department with clues regarding the gang responsible for the abortive smuggling bid.

"Investigators could use the information to track down the cartel responsible for the attempted crime," an officer said. "Various gangs operate drug smuggling networks between Tamil Nadu and Southeast Asia. Chennai has become a hub for smuggling drugs like ephedrine to countries in Southeast Asia."