Four foreign nationals held with cocaine worth Rs 39 crore

The police have arrested three Nigerian men alongwith a Brazilian woman and seized cocaine worth around Rs 39 crore from their possession,a senior official said here Sunday.

The accused were about to send the drug to South Africa, police said.

A team of Amboli police nabbed the accused from the Maurya Estate road in suburban Andheri Saturday night and recovered drugs worth Rs 38.95 crore, the official said.

The accused were identified as Neras Pokhogo (35), Michael Hop (29), Simon Agobata (32), all Nigerians; and Karle Ires (41), a woman from Brazil.

The cocaine allegedly seized from their possession was supposed to be sent to Johannesburg in South Africa.

The accused were held when they were heading for the office of a courier companyto dispatch the consignment.

Additional Commissioner of Police Manoj Kumar Sharma said the accused concealed narcotic drugs in rings and pipes of curtains. These drug-loaded consignments of curtains would be then sent abroad through courier companies.

The police were probing whether courier company officials were aware of this racket, Sharma added.

The accused were booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. A local court remanded them in seven-day police custody.

A police official said that Pokhogo was already facing a drug case in neighbouring Thane, while Ires, the Brazilian national, had come out of prison recently after serving a jail term in an NDPS case.