Police at Entebbe International Airport has seized cocaine weighing 1.5 kilograms from a woman said to have been attempting to sneak it out to Mali in West Africa.
The female suspect identified as Beatrice Isaro, a nurse from Rwanda was found with cocaine worth Shs 397 million concealed in her suitcase at the airport over the weekend.
Kampala Metropolitan Police reported that the cocaine was detected by the new technology equipments installed at the airport.
“Police recently procured machines with high technology intelligence which can never miss any slight illegal slip-in and that’s why we were able to arrest Isaro who tried to smuggle narcotic drugs out of the country,” the CIID Spokesperson, Superintendent of Police (SP) Vincent Ssekate said.
Isaro’s suitcase is said to have contained shoes, tea leaves, a towel as well as cocaine that was parked in papers and wrapped in a cloth for disguise.
The suspect possessed a Rwandan passport number EC 298229 and was in transit to Bamako the capital city of Mali.
She was arrested together with her counterpart Haruna Koli who Police suspects was connected to the smuggling deal.
But Isaro told Police that the suitcase was given to her by her friend called Issa who she had met earlier at Pioneer Mall in Kampala city centre and claimed Issa asked her to deliver it to his brother in Mali.
She said she was traveling to Mali to buy merchandise which she would resell in Kigali.
Isaro was charged with Smuggling Narcotic Drugs CRB 333/17 and is detained at Entebbe Aiport Police cells pending court.
According to Police, Isaro is the second female to be arrested smuggling cocaine through Entebbe airport within a period of one month. The first case involved a one Allen Nankanja who was arrested trying to smuggle cocaine from Brazil into Uganda through her knickers.