A police official said the estimated value of the seized heroin is about Rs 15 crore. (File photo)
A Tanzanian man has been arrested from the Delhi airport for allegedly smuggling in heroin worth about Rupees 15 crore from Kenya, officials said.
This was an intelligence-based operation and the man was arrested, Narcotics Control Bureau or NCB Delhi zonal director Madho Singh said.
Marande M Azizi, 40, was intercepted by the NCB sleuths at about 1:30 am after he landed at the Indira Gandhi International or IGI airport from Hyderabad, an official said. The sleuths were surprised to find 3 kg heroin in his baggage as the contraband is usually smuggled from Afghanistan and Pakistan into India.
The official said the estimated value of the seized heroin is about Rs 15 crore. They said the trafficking of heroin from African countries to India was a "new trend".
There had been a few similar instances in the past, the official added.
The Tanzanian revealed, the official said, that he was handed over the consignment of drugs by an African man in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi and he was supposed to hand it over to another foreigner based in Delhi.
Azizi was to be paid $2,000 once the drugs were delivered to the man in Delhi, the official said, adding that he had travelled to Delhi from Nairobi via Mumbai and Hyderabad.