Rédaction Africa Links 24 with lexpress
Published on 2024-04-16 02:45:00
| Cocaine capsules. |
Seventy-five cocaine capsules, with an estimated market value of 511 million Ariary, were found in the stomach of a Malagasy woman arrested in Sri Lanka.
The transnational drug trafficking continues. This time, a 38-year-old Malagasy national was arrested by the narcotics control unit of the customs department of Sri Lanka. The arrest took place on Friday evening at Bandaranaike Airport in Colombo, the country’s economic capital.
The smuggler was carrying in her body, precisely in her stomach, seventy-five capsules of cocaine. This quantity is estimated at around 511 million Ariary.
According to information gathered from some Sri Lankan news sites, the mule had swallowed the cocaine carefully wrapped in condoms. “She had arrived in Sri Lanka on a Vistara Airlines flight from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, via Mumbai, India,” reports the Colombo Gazette.
Criminal underworld
The narcotics control agents at the arrival terminal subjected the drug trafficker to a search. Initially, they found nothing in her belongings. She was detained. Their suspicions were confirmed when the woman was admitted to Negombo hospital for an X-ray. She underwent an operation during which the cocaine capsules were extracted.
“Preliminary investigations revealed that the passenger had come to Sri Lanka for the first time and she claimed that the purpose of her visit was tourism,” according to Sri Lankan media.
This cocaine trafficking reminds us of the arrest of two internationally wanted drug lords, Nadun Chinthaka Wickramaratne, alias Harak Kata, and Sellapperumage Salindu Malshika Guanaratne, on Malagasy soil last year.
These crime bosses were repatriated on March 13, 2023, without fanfare. A Malagasy woman presented herself as Harak Kata’s wife. The situation of her and the other individuals captured with the big shots has never been disclosed up to now. There has been no trial. It raises the question of whether the mule recently arrested in Sri Lanka is the same woman or not.
Hajatiana Léonard
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