KARACHI - The Customs Drug Enforcement Cell’s Karachi Airport unit, on Sunday, seized 17-kg heroin concealed in a garments consignment, booked for Lagos, Nigeria, and arrested two persons involved in the offence.
Customs Officer Qamar Thallo said that DEC staff at Export Cargo Complex, Air Freight Unit, Jinnah International Airport, Karachi, in pursuance of a credible information, intercepted a consignment, comprising 80 cartons all containing bulk quantity of t-shirts, being exported to consignee in Lagos by a Karachi-based exporter, M/s Seven “M” Corporation.
A detailed examination of the consignment led to the recovery of 17 kilos of fine quality heroin powder that was packed in 30 polythene packets, all wrapped in t-shirts, that were kept mixed in two out of 80 cartons to hoodwink the DEC’s examination staff.  It is worth mentioning that the underground mafia involved in the drug smuggling always tries to exploit the extra-ordinary workload on weekends to materialise their ulterior motives.
Consequent upon recovery and seizure of narcotics, two accused persons, Mehmood Ahmad and Ashraf Abbas, representing the clearing agents and exporter, respectively, have been arrested and a prosecution case under Control of Narcotics Substances Act 1997 has been registered against them.
 The DEC staff had earlier this month apprehended a Pakistani couple for smuggling 800-gram heroin from a Pakistani couple leaving for Colombo, who had concealed heroin inside their body cavities as capsules.
In addition to this, the DEC staff also arrested another Pakistani, Anjum Farooqui, who was found smuggling 460-gram heroin that was artfully concealed in a laptop. The accused, Anjum Farooqui, was leaving for Kuala Lumpur.