A US national who ingested several pellets of cocaine in his bid to traffic
them from Alabama to Saudi Arabia is recovering at a Nairobi hospital under
police watch.
This is after developing serious abdominal complications, police said.
The suspect was on Sunday, February 16 taken to the hospital by his friend, and was admitted for examination after exhibiting symptoms of excessive drugging.
A doctor at the hospital alerted anti-narcotics detectives from DCI Headquarters who visited the facility to witness an endoscopy process on the suspect.
It was then discovered that three pellets were recovered from the suspect's rectum, which tested positive for cocaine and weighed 57.98 grams valued at Sh1 million.
The exhibit was seized and documented.
According to police, the doctor also confirmed the presence of an extra pellet stuck in the suspect's small intestines.
There were
efforts to have it removed safely on Tuesday.
Detectives have since established that the suspect was temporarily residing at a short-stay apartment in Nairobi's Westlands area, and was due to board Ethiopian Airlines at 6 pm on the day he was taken ill.
He was to travel to Saudi Arabia through Addis Ababa.
His travel and personal documents have been confiscated pending his recovery,
whereafter he will face relevant drug trafficking charges.
Police
visited the apartment to establish if he had ingested the drugs there.
There were
also efforts being made to know if he had local agents trafficking the
narcotics, DCI boss Mohamed Amin said.
He said
they are waiting for the suspect to recover so that they can proceed with grilling and further
prosecution.
Police want
to know if the narcotics were meant for consumption or selling.
He could
face up to 12 years in jail if found guilty.
Meanwhile,
anti-narcotics officers based at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport on
Tuesday afternoon seized suspected amphetamines from a shipment destined for
Australia from Bujumbura, Burundi.
The drug
had been concealed in 10 large candles packed in a carton, police said.
The discovery was made during a verification exercise at the cargo area, where tests on the whitish crystalline substance found stashed in the carton and wrapped using a yellow cello tape tested positive for the highly addictive drug.
The shipment
was seized and further investigations are underway to track down the
traffickers.
Police
believe the traffickers were waiting for the same in Bujumbura and have asked
their counterparts in Burundi to trace them.
Cases of
drug trafficking have been on a drop due to various measures put in place to
tame the same.
Police say
most traffickers avoid using airports for the mission.
