Cocaine found in Nigerian’s stomach

Police said 42-year-old John Nwachukwu was taken to the Max Hospital,Saket,on March 11 by a fellow Nigerian Emma after he complained of severe stomachache. He was declared dead on arrival.

“Emma told us he was going to McDonald’s in PVR Saket area,when he saw John clutching his stomach and crying out for help. He rushed him to Max Hospital,where doctors declared him dead on arrival. We were not certain about the cause of the death and transferred him to the AIIMS Mortuary,” a police officer said.

“After a 15-day-long correspondence with the Nigerian Embassy,we finally got the consent from John’s family for his postmortem that led to the recovery of three packets of high-quality cocaine,” he added. Subsequently,the police registered a case under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act.

Emma was arrested on March 11 after the police found that his passport was forged. A case under Sections 420 (cheating),468 (forgery of records of court or public register) and 471 (using as genuine a forged document) of the IPC was registered against him. The police suspect that both were from the same gang. “We suspect a gang is operating in the NCR which smuggle drugs in this fashion. In January,an Afghan national was taken to the Max Hospital with severe stomach ache. After surgery,we recovered four packets of high-quality cocaine smuggled in from Afghanistan,” a senior police officer said.

On January 19,the Saket police had arrested Hafizullah who had come from Afghanistan carrying 70 grams of cocaine in his stomach. During treatment at Max Hospital,an endoscopy was conducted on him and four packets of cocaine were detected in his stomach. The drug was supposed to be delivered to another Afghan national in Delhi. The accused told the police that he was carrying packets of cocaine wrapped in tapes in his stomach to avoid detection at the airport.