Two ketamine smugglers held in Terengganu

KUALA TERENGGANU: The absence of a baggage scanner at the Customs counter at the Sultan Mahmud Airport may have encouraged two ketamine smugglers to enter Malaysia from here.

The suspects, a 52-year-old woman and a 43-year-old man, flew from Chennai, India, and transited at Singapore’s Changi Airport and the KL International Airport (KLIA) before landing at the Sultan Mahmud Airport here on March 5.

“We found their flight pattern strange as they could have just gone straight to KLIA and fly here instead of transiting at Changi,” state Customs enforcement chief Mat Jusoh Botok said yesterday.

“They may have chosen to land in Kuala Terengganu because our counter at the domestic arrivals hall does not have a baggage scanner.

“As connecting flights are transits, cargo is subjected to checks only at the final destination,” he added, hoping that the state government could address the problem as soon as possible.

The department seized 10kg of ketamine, said to have a street value of RM813,000, hidden in secret compartments in the bags of the two Indian nationals.

The woman was nabbed at the arrival hall, carrying 5km of ketamine.

Her male accomplice was detained while was his way to the city in a taxi.

Enforcement officers who tailed him from the airport, stopped the man at Kampung Seberang Takir and seized 5.7kg of the drug from him.