A Kenyan woman is being detained in India after she was arrested for smuggling in cocaine valued at about ShS14 million that was concealed in whiskey bottles.
The woman was arrested on Tuesday at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi, a customs official told local media.
The suspect was intercepted after her arrival from Kenya via Addis Ababa on Monday.
Custom officials said the 2.5 kgs cocaine was concealed in three whiskey bottles and was recovered from a bag.
A kilo of cocaine fetches about Sh6 million in the black market and can vary depending on the place.
During interrogation, the woman revealed that the bag she was carrying was handed over to her in Nairobi and she was to hand it over to another person in Delhi.
The bottles, bearing the Black Label stickers, appear to show the cocaine in liquid, brownish form before the Customs authorities condensed it.
The Kenyan national has since been arraigned in court and is currently being held in custody.
Five days prior, the same Delhi Customs tweeted that a Kenyan woman had been arrested ferrying a similar drug in a similar way - concealed in two Black Label bottles.
The woman also arrived in India via Addis Ababa.
"On the basis of profiling, AirCustoms@IGIA has seized 2 whiskey bottles having dissolved Cocaine from a Kenyan pax arrived from Addis Ababa," they tweeted.
"Approx value around 13 Cr, exact value will be ascertained after extraction under Court supervision. The pax has been arrested under NDPS Act."
In February, a Kenya Airways passenger was arrested in India for trying to smuggle heroin.
The female passenger was arrested at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai, India’s Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) said.
The passenger arrived in India from Harare via Nairobi on board a Kenya Airways flight, police were quoted by local media.
The DRI said the suspect, who was identified as Rukshana Shaikh, upon interrogation said the drugs were handed over to her in Harare and the same were to be delivered to two persons in Mumbai.
Kenyan officials are investigating the source of the narcotics.
In 2019, the then European Union Ambassador to Kenya Simon Mordue said the Kenyan port of Mombasa accounted for 30 per cent of illegal heroin smuggled into the EU market.
Most of the heroine in the country originates from Afghanistan through the Indian Ocean while cocaine originates from South America.
Kenyan security agencies seized the second-biggest haul of cocaine weighing 100 kilos and valued at Sh598 million in 2016 in Mombasa which was disguised as sugar.
The case was, however, later dismissed in court.