Heroin worth Rs 99 crore seized at Kempegowda International Airport: Report

The suspect, identified as a man from Telangana, smuggled the heroin inside custom-made false bottoms of two trolley bags, a TOI report said

In a huge drug bust, officials from the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) arrested a purported teacher-turned-smuggler who arrived from Ethiopia with 14 kg of heroin worth Rs 99 crore at Bengaluru’s Kempegowda International Airport (KIA), according to a Times of India report.

The suspect, identified as a man from Telangana, smuggled the heroin inside custom-made false bottoms of two trolley bags, the report said. The suspect was a teacher who landed a job as a drug carrier in Ethiopia through an internet job search, according to the report.

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TOI sources said the Bengaluru unit of DRI had received a tip-off that a middle-aged man was smuggling large amounts of heroin from Ethiopia's Addis Ababa to Delhi via Bengaluru.

The DRI team stationed themselves at KIA on Aug. 19 and waited for a specific Ethiopian Airlines flight to land, the TOI report said. The team then moved in on a 52-year-old Indian citizen from Telangana who had two trolley bags. Inspection of the bags revealed false bottoms and inside were brown packets covered with black tape, the report said. The packets contained 14 kg of heroin worth Rs 99 crore in the international market, TOI sources said.