KATHMANDU, APRIL 23

The Narcotics Control Bureau has arrested a person with 900 grams of brown sugar that he was carrying in his stomach.

Officials said Dawa Lama Tamang, 49, of Dhading was trying to smuggle hard drug to Nepal from Pakistan on an Air Arabia Airlines flight last week. Police at Tribhuvan International Airport detained him for X-ray scanning on his body after he started behaving in a suspicious manner during the security check. According to NCB, an X-ray scanning detected the drug inside capsules in his stomach.

He was taken to Nepal Police Hospital, Maharajgunj, administered laxative to extract the capsules of brown sugar from his body. The drug was found to be in swallowable and non-digestible capsules.

The brown sugar recovered from Tamang weighs 900 grams and is priced at Rs 90 million in illegal market. NCB informed that 300 USD was also confiscated from him. Based on his statement, NCB has arrested three more persons, including two women, who were believed to be working in cahoots with Tamang.

Those suspects include Gopi Tamang, 59, Honi Maya Tamangni and Bayas Bahadur Gurung, 52, of Dhading. Officials claimed that it was the highest amount of brown sugar extracted from a drug swallower. Swallowing capsules laden with drug has emerged as a new modus operandi employed by drug smugglers to outsmart police at TIA.

NCB officials said 10 such cases were reported in the past five years. A person possessing hard drugs more than 90 grams is liable to life imprisonment.

According to NCB, Tamang was a repeat offender. He was held with white heorine in 2008 and served five years in jail. Officials said more persons were found to have involved in the drug racket headed by Tamang. A version of this article appears in the print on April 24, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.