- An official handling the matter said they are concerned with the trend of the issue and revealed a meeting had been called to discuss the same.
- Cases of interception of narcotics originating Kenya have been on the rise in the past weeks.
A Nigerian national was arrested after landing in his country with 76 bathing soaps made with cocaine valued at Sh65 million.
Officials said the 27-year-old Madu Chukwuemeka Miracle was arrested by operatives from Nigeria’s National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) at the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu on arrival from Nairobi, Kenya via Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on October 26, 2022.
A search of his three bags revealed 76 foreign bathing soaps made with cocaine in one of the bags, while another had two plastic bottles containing cream-like liquid, which tested positive for cocaine.
Officials at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport said they had been informed the cocaine bars weighed 10.650 kilograms, while the liquid cocaine weighed 2.496 kilograms, bringing the total weight to 13.146 kilograms.
It is not clear how the narcotics managed to pass through scanning at the JKIA and Bole where the plane landed for connection to Enugu.
Police said on October 31 that they are investigating the source of the narcotics.
An official handling the matter said they are concerned with the trend of the issue and revealed a meeting had been called to discuss the same.
Cases of interception of narcotics originating in Kenya have been on the rise in the past weeks.
In September, three Kenyan women were arrested at India’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in separate cases of smuggling cocaine and heroin valued at about Sh25 million.
More than 97 kilograms of cocaine worth more than Sh500 million was at the same time seized at the Addis Ababa Bole International Airport.
The detectives are still establishing how the haul in two boxes and others managed to pass through checks at the airports.
The officials handling the case said they would talk to customs and Kenya Airports Authority staff who were on duty when the cargo passed before being intercepted.
Kenyan officials term the trend alarming.
Sources said the seizure is a warning Kenya is now a major transit route for the narcotics probably destined for Europe and Asia.
But the detectives said the latest trend of seizures of narcotics locally points to a dangerous scenario that needs attention from authorities.
In 2019, then European Union Ambassador to Kenya Simon Mordue said the Kenyan port of Mombasa accounted for 30 per cent of illegal heroin smuggled into the EU market.
Most of the heroine in the country originates from Afghanistan through the Indian Ocean while cocaine originates from South America.
Kenyan security agencies seized the second-biggest haul of cocaine weighing 100 kilograms and valued at Sh598 million in 2016 in Mombasa which was disguised as sugar.
The case was, however, later dismissed in court.