Nepal Cripples Peru-Malaysia Drug Pipeline With Arrest Of Thai Woman

By P.Vijian NEW DELHI, Jan 6 (Bernama) -- The Nepal anti-narcotic agency claims to have cracked a high-profile Peru-Malaysia drug network with the arrest of a Malaysia-bound Thai woman with cocaine in Kathmandu. Piecing evidences, Nepal Narcotic Drug Control Law Enforcement Unit agents discovered that the 36-year-old woman traversed nearly six countries to dupe security agents to deliver the consignment to an unknown Malaysian buyer. The woman, allegedly married to a European national, was detained at the Tribhuvan International Airport on Wednesday night, with one kilogramme of cocaine before boarding a flight. "She collected the cocaine in Peru and flew to several countries to avoid being caught but was picked up here during a profiling of passengers. "She had booked a hotel in Kuala Lumpur for a five-day stay and was supposed to deliver the drugs, get paid and return to her home in Bangkok," Senior Superintendent of Police Nawa Raj Silawl, deputy chief of Nepal's anti-drug unit, told Bernama by phone on Friday. According to her fresh Thai passport, she first travelled to Indonesia from Bangkok, halted in Brazil, then went to Peru where she collected the drugs and later flew to Qatar via Argentina, before landing in Nepal on Dec 2. She may have been doing this for a long time and those who hired her must have paid nearly US$30,000 (RM94,380) to do the job," added Silawl. The seized cocaine, concealed in metal containers and hidden in her luggage, was valued at US$200,000 (RM629,200) in the international market. Probes revealed she stayed in a hotel in Thamel, a popular tourist hangout in Kathmandu, Nepal's capital, for two days before her departure to Malaysia -- presumably to avoid any suspicion from Malaysian authorities. -- BERNAMA Malaysia