Alert cops catch Nigerian national with cocaine worth ₹9cr

Nigerian man apprehended in Mumbai with 88 capsules of cocaine worth ₹9 crore. The capsules were received from an accomplice who flew in from Brazil.

MUMBAI: Alert cops from Sakinaka police station apprehended a Nigerian man with 88 capsules of cocaine worth around ₹9 crore in the early hours of Saturday. He had received the consignment from his accomplice who had flown in from Brazil with the capsules in his stomach.

HT Image

Sub inspectors Rajendra Nagare and Pankaj Pardeshi were on night patrolling around 3 am near the H Gate in Sakivihar when they found the body language and movements of a man suspicious. As the police approached him, he tried to escape in an autorickshaw but the cops got hold of him after a dramatic chase. After thorough enquiry, they uncovered that the man identified as Daniel Naymek, 38, from Lagos, Nigeria was in possession of cocaine capsules weighing 880 grams which he had taken from 19-year-old Venezuela resident Alejandro Vera Ramos.

“We later got to know that Ramos had smuggled the drugs into India by ingesting all 88 capsules. He flew from Sao Paulo in Brazil on January 1 to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia from where he picked up the drugs before flying to India the next day,” said Datta Nalawade, deputy commissioner of police for zone 10.

After landing in the city, Ramos checked into a hotel in Sakinaka. He told the police that he puked out the capsules. Around 2 am on Saturday, Naymek reached the hotel to pick up the contraband. “He was walking outside the hotel when the police team spotted him. He had just come back from buying the capsules from Ramos at the time. He also told us that when he went there, the hotel authorities refused to let Naymek go upstairs to Ramos’ room, insisting that the two men meet in the hotel lobby,” said DCP Nalawade.

As the Nigerian man currently lives in Ulwe in Navi Mumbai, the police suspect that he is a part of a drug syndicate run by Nigerians based in Navi Mumbai.

Both the accused foreign nationals are currently in police custody. They have both been booked under relevant sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic substances (NDPS) Act. The entire stash of the cocaine they had traded was seized by the police.