Nigerian drug mule smuggling over 1 kg cocaine nabbed

Okonk Woh, a Nigerian citizen had travelled more than 10,000 km from the city of Lagos to Delhi and did not even drink a drop of water or have any food. He starved himself for more than a day; but he was not looking to set a world record.

Okonk was a drug mule, who had ingested 90 pills of high quality cocaine, and had he dared to breakhis fast and have some food, the pills — packed in waterproof plastic — would have burst out and sent him on a one way ticket to the netherworld due to the overdose.

However, the Delhi Unit of the Narcotics Control Bureau intercepted him at the IGI Airport on February 6, after they had conducted a passenger profiling analysis on the Nigerian, and found that he had ingested 1.3 kg worth of cocaine.

The Deputy Director General of NCB, Dr Rajender Pal Singh, said: "After the profiling, we questioned him and found that his behaviour was suspicious and he could not give any straight answers. His baggage was searched and we found nothing, but we shifted him to Safdarjung hospital to conduct an X-ray examination".

Okonk kept pleading with the agency officials that he was a businessman who had come to the Capital to look after his hair business. However, his lies came to the fore, when the X-ray report came in and it was found that he had ingested 90 pills of high quality cocaine.

The accused was later discharged by doctors and he was questioned by NCB officials. Okonk was a drug mule, who had travelled from Lagos to the port city of Lome in Togo, a Western African country.

"He had ingested pills at a guest house in Lagos and it took him three hours to ingest the entire amount. He took a flight from Lome to the Eastern African city of Addis Ababa, and then reached Delhi," Singh said.

In the last ten days, the NCB has arrested ten African nationals for drug trafficking. Talking to Millennium Post, Singh said that in the last 30 days this was the sixth seizure, in which three cases of mules swallowing pills has come to light. Okonk was promised one thousand dollars for a single trip. Drug mules employ various tactics to swallow the pills. "In this case he had used water proof plastic. There are cases where we have found traffickers using condoms, or they cut out gloves used for surgeries and conceal the contraband in them," said Singh.

The process of ingesting cocaine, sealed in pills, is highly dangerous as only professionals can manage to pull off the act. It takes three to four hours to ingest the pills and the mules later have to ingest laxatives and wait for hours to release the pills from their bodies.

The experienced mules suffer from gastric problems and are usually bogged down by severe constipation problems. "Ninety pills is the maximum limit that we have seen. In a previous case, a woman had ingested 90 pills containing 785 grams. In this case, it was more than one kilogram. We are now looking for his handlers based in Nigeria and India," Singh added.