Nigerian lands at Bengaluru airport with 99 cocaine pills worth Rs 20 crore in stomach. Then...

The pills weighed about 2 kg, the police said. (Representational image: Unsplash)

A Nigerian man recently landed in Bengaluru carrying 99 capsules of cocaine in his stomach. The man had arrived from Addis Ababa in Ethiopia with drugs worth Rs 20 crore and was busted at the Kempegowda International Airport recently, reported the Times of India.

The 40-year-old, whose identity has not been revealed, had a visiting visa for medical reasons and had landed in Bengaluru on December 11. After his arrest, the officials said that he had swallowed the pills weighing 2 kg before boarding the flight from Adris Ababa.

It took the man more than five days in the hospital to get the pills out of his system, the publication reported.

According to the police, the Nigerian national had planned to take a domestic flight from Bengaluru to Delhi and hand the drugs over to the handlers in the national capital.

This comes a month after the arrest of a Nigerian national on charges of drug peddling led to the discovery of an alleged MDMA-making facility at his home on the outskirts of Bengaluru and the recovery of 5 kg of MDMA crystals valued at Rs 10 crore, Indian Express reported.

The police also found raw materials and equipment at Benjamin Chidubem’s home that were being used to cook MDMA. The 40-year-old accused was involved in making and selling the synthetic drug in Bengaluru and distributing it to other states and countries, the police said.

In a similar incident in Mumbai, the police nabbed 15 Nigerians with drugs worth Rs 84.85 lakh; 14 of them were found staying in India illegally, Hindustan Times reported.

Read more: Nigerian with about Rs 54 lakh in new notes intercepted at IGIA