Guinea national nabbed at JKIA with heroin valued at Sh35.5 million

Nairobi, Kenya: A Guinea national was at the weekend arrested at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport while carrying 11.8 kilogrammes of heroin valued at Sh35.5 million.

Ramady Diakite was traveling from Arusha, Tanzania to Bamako, Mali when he was intercepted at the airport on Friday evening.

This was after anti-narcotics detectives found his luggage with narcotics concealed as cosmetics.

The drugs were later taken for analysis and tests and proved to be almost 12 kilos of heroin and valued at Sh35.5 million, police said.

Airport CID boss Judy Jebet said they are investigating if the suspect is a regular trafficker.

"The drugs had been concealed as cosmetics when they were detected by anti-narcotics officials at the airport. This is a good catch and warning to others," said Ms Jebet.

Head of Anti-Narcotics Unit Hamis Masa said they have detected high cases of heroin originating Tanzania.

He said two weeks ago, three relatives were arrested and more than two kilos of heroin valued at Sh6.2 million found on them along Nairobi- Namanga highway.

The suspects were arrested in a saloon car headed for Nairobi from Tanzania when they were stopped by police.

The arrest was the latest in a series of others that have happened in the past days. Most traffickers arrested at JKIA are usually on transit.

Cases of drug trafficking through JKIA have been on the rise with police making several arrests and seizures. Anti-narcotics police officers say most of the drugs being consumed in Nairobi originate Tanzania through the Namanga border.

The traffickers had also been avoiding airports for roads, which are poorly manned to traffic the drugs.

Most of the narcotics that are seized are cocaine and heroin.

Statistics show police at the airport-seized drugs valued more than Sh1 billion last year alone. Most of those arrested were passengers who were on transit.

Last year, 1,359 cases of drug trafficking were detected in Kenya and 1,513 suspects arrested the majority of whom- 1,375 were male.

According to police statistics, 10 kilos of heroin, 2,000 litres of diesel mixed with heroin, 3,200 litres of liquid heroin, 11.2 kilos of cocaine, 101 tablets of psychotropic drugs and several bags of cannabis herbal valued at more than Sh1.5 billon were recovered in 2014.

Of those arrested 1,478 were Kenyans, 10 Tanzanians, one Rwandese, three South Africans, four Nigerians, one Togolese, six Pakistanis, two Indians, one Ugandan and one Irianian while six have no nationalities.