Kochi's Cocaine Connection

Three major drug seizures at Kochi airport in the past few months have Sao Paulo links. Have the cartels come to town?

- Jeemon Jacob

When 36-year-old Biag Jhonna de Torres, a Filipino, boarded an Ethiopian Airlines flight from Sao Paulo’s Guarulhos airport this New Year’s Eve, she was embarking on an unusually circuitous journey— from Brazil to Addis Ababa, Muscat and finally Kochi. On her first trip to India, Torres had reservations to stay at a hotel in Ernakulam. She had been assured that security at Kochi International Airport would be lax. She would be landing after 2 pm on January 1.

But they knew she was coming. Acting on a tip-off, a posse of Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) detectives were waiting for Torres at the exit counter. A search of her baggage revealed 4.8 kilos of 95 per cent pure cocaine carefully concealed inside a strolley. A scrutiny of her passport, issued in Hong Kong in 2013, revealed she was a frequent traveller—it had been stamped in Thailand, Brazil, Vietnam, Cambodia and Nepal.