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KATHMANDU. — More than a hundred of non-digestible plastic coated capsules seized in Nepal’s record cocaine haul were showed to Xinhua yesterday. The Narcotics Control Bureau said it took about five days to eject the capsules filled with cocaine from the stomach of a Namibian citizen arrested with 2,67 kg cocaine hidden in his luggage and stomach at the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu.

In the biggest ever cocaine haul in Nepal, the police found 45 capsules of cocaine in Raymond Zungu Oppel’s luggage, and 112 of more than 5 centimetres long concealed in his body having an estimated value of US$534 000 on the black market.

“After the Namibian got through checking at the airport, we found his movements suspicious. Our special team followed him and we first found 765 grams of cocaine in his bag,” Niraj B. Shahi, superintendent of Narcotic Control Bureau told Xinhua.

The 40-year-old Namibian national said he was promised US$20 000 for smuggling the cocaine to Nepal.
The Narcotics Control Bureau said cocaine does not sell in the Himalayan nation as many cannot afford it. Drug traffickers usually use Nepal as a transit point to smuggle cocaine produced in South America principally into Europe and the US.

“We are trying to discover Oppel’s contact person in Kathmandu but we do not expect him to talk,” Shahi told Xinhua. “In the underground world it’s all about trust. Blood in, blood out this is how it works. — Xinhua.