Kenyan Car Dealer Arrested With 4 Kilos of Cocaine in Sir Lankan Airport

A Kenyan citizen has been arrested at the Bandaranaike International Airport in Katunayake, Sri Lanka, for carrying four kilograms of cocaine valued at Sh24 million.

The man, a car dealer, had arrived from Ethiopia and was travelling on a Qatar Airways flight to Sri Lanka. He was arrested on Sunday by the Sri Lanka Customs narcotics control unit at the airport's arrival terminal. Despite his innocence claims, 180 capsules of cocaine weighing four kilos were seized from his hand luggage which had been secretly placed inside three metal cookie tins.

After receiving a tip from foreign intelligence, the narcotics control unit of Sri Lanka Customs arrested the Kenyan man suspected of drug trafficking. The suspect had tried to exit the country through the "green channel," a section only meant for passengers without an excess of restricted goods beyond the duty-free limit. Upon his arrest, the authorities seized a considerable amount of drugs from him and handed him over to the Police Narcotics Bureau for further inquiry.

Official reports have revealed a worrisome pattern of Kenyan citizens being apprehended for drug trafficking in parts of Asia. The authorities are probing the recent incident owing to fears that Kenya could be evolving into a principal transit corridor that sends illicit narcotics towards Europe and Asia. Apart from this, the upswing in seizures of contraband inventory lists another precarious state of affairs for Kenyan officials to address.

Around one-third of the illegal heroin pouring into the European Union marketplace is transported via the Kenyan harbour of Mombasa. Most of the heroin comes from Afghanistan through the Indian Ocean, while cocaine shipments come from South America. In 2016, Mombasa security authorities detected a staggering 100kg stash of cocaine masquerading as sugar and valued at Sh598 million.