Macedonian national arrested with Rs.17 Mn WORTH cocaine

Customs Media Spokesman Sudaththa Silva yesterday said that a Macedonian national who came to Sri Lanka with 350 grams of cocaine worth about Rs.17 million was arrested by the Customs Narcotics Control Division on March 13.

The arrested person’s journey had originated in Brazil and had travelled to Doha, Qatar with the stock of cocaine.

He had then arrived at the Bandaranaike International Airport, Katunayake yesterday morning (13) on Qatar Airways flight QR-664.

Eight boxes containing 15 packets of soup pieces each were found in his baggage on inspection. Among these were 15 packets of soup in each of four boxes, of which cocaine had been packed into one packet and carefully hidden. He had put a Macedonian coin in the box to correctly and easily identify the box with the soup pieces packet containing the drug cocaine.

Customs officials discovered that this Macedonian citizen had in his possession a forged identity card stating that he was a high ranked official of a United Nations Organization.

Customs Narcotics Control Division officials suspect that the reason why he travelled so far and brought such a small quantity of cocaine is probably because he was visiting Sri Lanka for the first time.

The cocaine and the Macedonian national are to be handed over to Katunayake Airport Police Narcotics Division for further investigations.