Malian National Arrested After Police Seize Cocaine Worth Shs 1.7Bn

Police have seized a sizable amount of narcotic drugs from a foreigner suspected to be part of a drug cartel.

Cocaine weighing up to 7 kilograms and valued in excess of a billion shillings was seized during an operation by Police in Namasuba along Entebbe road.

Police sealed off a building in Namasuba and arrested a man identified as Idrissa Traore who is part of a drug cartel that is suspected to be involved in smuggling drugs in and out of Uganda.

Traore, a foreign national from Mali in West Africa was found with cocaine weighing 7 kgs worth 1.7 billion shillings, according to a statement by the Kampala Metropolitan Police.

“This was after the Director of Criminal Investigations in Burundi tipped us that they had arrested a one Musa Fofona at Bujumbura Airport trying to smuggle cocaine who later revealed to us that it belonged to Traore,” the statement by Police reads in part.

Police say they that the Mali national has lived in Uganda for 20 years and has been in the process of applying for a Ugandan Passport.

“We are more than before committed to fighting drug smugglers, working with neighboring countries because some times apart from the airports, drugs are smuggled across our porous borders”.

The Inspector General of Police, Gen Kale Kayihura recently vowed to step up operations aimed at cracking down on the sale and use of narcotic drugs. His tough stance against narcotics followed separate incidents in which two Europeans were discovered dead in their hotel rooms in Kampala. Toxicology reports later revealed that tests conducted on their body samples including stomach contents, bile, urine, liver and blood, scientists confirmed that the two died due to drug intoxication.

Kayihura said that Police is planning to form a specialized unit tasked to counter the use of narcotic drugs which he said has become a threat.

“We are setting up a special squad for drugs. We can’t continue having this problem. It’s a fight we might fight like we have done with terrorism,” the IGP told journalists weeks ago.

In 2017, Police arrested Allen Nankanja while she attempted to smuggle cocaine worth Shs 875 million from Brazil into the country. Another lady called Beatrice Isaro, a Rwandan national was also arrested at Entebbe airport trying to smuggle Cocaine worth Shs 397 million into Uganda.

Cocaine, sometimes known as coke, is a strong stimulant mostly used as a recreational drug. It is commonly snorted, inhaled as smoke, or as a solution injected into a vein.

But users often get addicted to it which most times results into excessive or prolonged use. Adverse effects from cocaine use include; itching, fast heart rate, hallucinations, and paranoid delusions, hyperthermia, life threatening elevation of blood pressure and death.