Kochi: The African national, who was caught while trying to smuggle out drugs worth Rs 8 crore to foreign countries through courier service, had on two previous occasions indulged in the act using the same modus operandi, it was revealed.
Judee Micthele (43), a national of the Republic of Benin, was intercepted at the premises of a courier agency at MG Road which was working as a collection agent for an international courier service.
The Commissionerate of Customs (Preventive) seized 4 kg of Heroine valued at Rs 7 crore and 300 gm of Methamphetamine valued at Rs 1 crore upon scrutiny of courier parcels attempted to sent by him to four foreign countries.
“The seized courier parcels were consigned to the Netherlands, Greece, Spain and Australia,” said Dr K. N. Raghavan, Customs Commissioner, Kochi.
“During interrogation he admitted to have indulged in smuggling in a similar way at least on two previous occasions. Verification with the courier agency revealed that the same person had booked a parcel earlier with another passport on one occasion earlier.”
What led to his arrest was that one of his earlier consignments was seized by the Customs at Delhi and they had alerted the Customs Preventive Commissionerate here. Since then, the collection centre was put under surveillance.
“International drug gangs are not so active in this part of the country. Rather gangs smuggling using West African origins are based in Delhi,” the customs official said. “May be they were attempting to smuggle from here via courier service to evade detection."
Customs officials seized two passports from him and further probe is on to unearth his contacts. "He will be handed over to the Delhi Customs for further probe after we finish interrogating him," Dr Raghavan said.
Follow parcel rules, say cops
The shipment through couriers has turned up the preferred mode of smuggling drugs from the state which has forced agencies like the Narcotics Control Bureau to hold regular meetings with courier agencies and impart training to staff on matters like nature of suspicious consignments.
In many collection centres, mandatory procedures are not often followed due to lack of monitoring equipment such as scanners and often the staff reply on random checking.
"However we'll take strict action against those not collecting 'Know Your Customer' information of the customers," NCB sources said. Even scanning cannot detect modern narcotics like LSD unlike the case with that of conventional contrabands such as ganja, they said.
DGP Sen Kumar, through his official Facebook page, earlier urged all courier agencies to install scanners and warned them to be on vigil in the wake of rackets increasingly found adapting the modus operandi.
"The role of courier agency receiving the packet is largely limited to procuring a declaration from the client and documents to identify them," said K N Raghavan, Commissioner of Customs, Kochi.
