700 grams of heroine found in PIA aircraft at Karachi airport

KARACHI: Around 700 grams of heroin worth Rs7 million were found in the hidden compartments of a Pakistan International Airlines aircraft at Jinnah International Airport on Thursday, according to a customs department spokesman.    

The official said the plane had come from Kuala Lumpur and was bound for Peshawar. He added that the personnel of Pakistan Customs Preventive deployed at the departure section of Jinnah International Airport searched the aircraft on a tip-off.

However, this was not the first time heroin was found in the plane.

On January 4, Airport Security Force (ASF) on Wednesday thwarted a passenger’s attempt to smuggle heroin on a Saudi Arabia-bound airplane at Islamabad airport.

Security authorities recovered 1.25 kilograms of contraband hidden away in bottles of branded dietary fiber (Ispaghol), ASF sources had informed.

ASF explained the heroin was seized from a passenger name Amjad Khan, a resident of Sargodha, who was set to travel to Medina via a private airline.

On December 21 PIA’s security vigilance team in Karachi along with the ASF, ANF and Pakistan Customs officials found 17kg of heroin hidden in the concealed compartments of a plane, during a pre-departure sweep of a Boeing 777 aircraft bound for Jeddah.