The arrested are South African national Msane Mpathoni, 37, and Indian national Mercy, 41. Tipped off by a foreign source, the bureau arrested the African woman while dealing with the Indian national to smuggle the contraband to New Delhi via Sunauli border point."As per the information, we followed the woman to her hotel. We kept close vigilance upon her activities for about four days and finally arrested red handed," DIG Jaya Bahadur Chand, chief of the bureau, said.
The narcotics investigators said that the modus operandi was unique from the previous ones as the alleged smugglers used organic solvents to liquefy the illegal drugs to avoid any possible doubts from the security agencies.
"The solvents are mixed in such a way that there remains only cocaine powder in the bottle till the contraband reaches its destination," Inspector Ghanashyam Shrestha said.
According to the bureau's preliminary investigation, Msane, who was arrested in her second venture, was found to have successfully smuggled cocaine to European countries via India about a year ago.
According to the police, she travelled from South Africa to Doha, Brazil and then reached Kathmandu last week with the cocaine. As per the setting, she transported the illegal drug under a USD 3000 deal, which she was to receive after handling the drug to the Indian lady. Police claimed that the smuggling had no connection with Nepalese citizen.
The seized cocaine is priced at USD 200,000 per kg in the grey market. Drug traffickers have been using Nepal as a transit point for the transport of drugs of late. In a similar case, the police had arrested a Pilipino and two Pakistanis using same route for smuggling.
Related story
I thought there was liquor in the bottle: Acid attacker
