Is Kochi, disputably the most happening city in South India, turning into an important transit point in the narcotics trade network of Latin American drug cartels?
The seizure of a huge quantity of cocaine that originated from Brazil’s Sao Paulo, the largest city of South America, at the Kochi International Airport on New Year Day from a young Philippine woman and the arrest in the past two months of a Venezuelan national and a Paraguayan citizen with large quantities of the same substance are seen as indications of this possibility.
The 36-year-old Filipino, arrested at the Kochi airport by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NRB) on Monday while trying to smuggle out 4.75 kilos of cocaine valued roughly at Rs 25 crore in the international market, has told the sleuths that she was getting her instructions from Sao Paulo from where she had flown to Kochi through Addis Ababa and Muscat.
The authorities believe that the cocaine was not intended for customers in Kochi, which has of late become a destination for new-generation high-intensity psychotropic drugs, but to be forwarded to other places like Goa. They have learned that the Filipino, Jhonna De Torres, was only a carrier whose job was to deliver the ‘consignment’ to an agent on ground in Kochi.
The NRB officials found that the huge quantity of cocaine was hidden in a false chamber in the bottom of her check-in baggage when she landed in Kochi from Muscat by an Oman Air flight on Monday afternoon. She told the officials that her job was to deliver the contraband to an agent, of whom she had no idea, for which she was to be paid Rs 300,000.
The sleuths, with the help of interpreters and from the messages recovered from the Filipino’s mobile phone, found out that an accommodation had been booked online for her at a star hotel in Kochi city. The room was booked online from Sao Paulo by unknown persons. The officials have also learned that the agent based in Kochi was to take the delivery of the drug at the hotel.
As per the instructions conveyed to Jhonna from Sao Paulo on her mobile, she was to wait at the Kochi hotel. She was to be given the contact details of the agent once she was in the hotel where the agent was to take delivery. Sources said it was not known whether the agent had already visited the hotel as Jhonna did not have the opportunity to reach the hotel.
“This is not the first time cocaine is seized at the Kochi airport. Even the volume – this was the biggest seizure of cocaine in Kerala – is not what is causing concern. What is more disturbing is the point of origin of and control on the stuff – Sao Paulo. It may mean Kochi has got a place on the active map of South American drug cartels,” said an official.
The NCB had last month arrested a Venezuelan national from Kochi airport with one kilo of cocaine. In November, a Paraguayan citizen was arrested in this airport itself with 3.6 kilos of the same substance.