“She is a courier. She had come to hand over the drugs to a group of African peddlers,” a police officer told The New Indian Express.
BENGALURU, INDIA —A 25-year-old Nigerian woman, Ifeoluwa Akinwunmi, risks up to 20 years in jail after she was arrested in India with drugs worth over N1.8bn.
Akinwunmi, reportedly a hairstylist and nail artist, was apprehended last Tuesday by the Anti-Narcotics Wing of Bengaluru’s Central Crime Branch. She was caught in Tarahunase village with a suspicious bag containing 5.325kg of MDMA crystals, hidden among 11 churidars.
“She is a courier. She had come to hand over the drugs to a group of African peddlers,” a police officer told The New Indian Express.
Authorities said she is being charged under India’s Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, which prescribes 10–20 years’ imprisonment for commercial drug trafficking. She also faces prosecution under the Foreigners Act, 1946.
Akinwunmi claimed she travelled to India to open a beauty salon.
Her arrest came just days after another Nigerian, Emmanuel Bediako alias Maxwell, was detained in Telangana for a similar offence.