Kush raids continue at BIA Three more SL passengers from Thailand nabbed with Rs.120Mn worth of drugs

By Kurulu Koojana Kariyakarawana

Making yet another detection of the Cannabis variety ‘Kush’ in a row in the past few weeks Sri Lanka Customs manning the airport yesterday thwarted an attempt to smuggle a consignment of narcotics from Thailand worth over Rs.120 million by three local women.   

Three Sri Lankan females who were trying to smuggle 12 kilos of drugs concealed in electrical appliances purchased from Bangkok, were arrested by the Customs Narcotic Control Unit officials at the Bandaranaike International Airport.  

According to Customs sources, the women who were returning from Bangkok had first taken a flight to Chennai, India and then reached Katunayake to distract the authorities, as more checking is done on flights from Thailand for drug trafficking.   

The Customs officials at the BIA Arrival Terminal searched the belongings of the passengers to find the narcotics carefully hidden inside the household electrical goods.   

The authorities found 12 kilos of the Cannabis variety from them and a gram of Kush has a street value of Rs. 10,000 in Sri Lanka.   

The suspects had been identified as a 46-year-old woman and her 18-year-old daughter from Kolonnawa and a 56-year-old woman from Wellampitiya.   

According to preliminary investigations the women had visited Thailand and India on several previous occasions to bring electrical goods and the authorities suspect whether they had managed to smuggle drugs into the country before.   

They were handed over to the Police Narcotic Bureau with the contraband for further legal proceedings.