'Drug mule arrested in Delhi had false South African passport'

Authorities here have said that a 22-year-old woman held in Delhi last week for allegedly trying to smuggle drugs was holding a fake South African passport.
The number on the passport provided to Indian police by Lynette Nosipho, 22, belongs to a 70-year-old pensioner in South Africa, according to the Foreign Ministry here.
Nosipho was nabbed at Indira Gandhi International Airport on April 20 for allegedly trying to smuggle out Rs 1.18 crore worth drugs.
Patricia Gerber, director of Locked Up, an organisation that assists drug mules held in foreign jails, told media that such drug carriers who were lured into the lucrative smuggling business often used falsified travel documents, including false passports.

Gerber said South Africa was being tainted by Nosipho's actions while she might not even be a national of the country at all.
Gerber said handlers would even plant unsuspecting drug mules to be caught sometimes by tipping off authorities in order to allow a bigger shipment of drugs around the same time to go undetected.