SECURITY agencies operating at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) at Timehri on Saturday, prevented a US citizen and a Guyanese citizen from smuggling approximately 20 kilogrammes of cocaine concealed in tamarind achar onto a Caribbean Airlines flight bound for New York City in the USA.A statement issued by CJIA authorities has said that at 15:45 hrs, the baggage of American citizen Winston Blake, 77, was searched and two packages of achar with over 10 kilos of cocaine disguised to look like tamarind seeds were found.

The Guyanese citizen Sadeeka Odie, 38, was apprehended around 17:10hrs after similar packages of achar with cocaine in the shape of tamarind seeds were also found in her luggage. She was travelling with her nine-year-old daughter.

Both intercepted passengers were en-route to New York City.

The CJIA statement said, “The law enforcement agencies must be lauded for these detections, which saw the cocaine being cleverly made in the form of tamarind seed and placed in achar. It is a stark reminder of the lengths [to] which those involved in the narco-trade would go to move the drugs through our ports.”

In the past, drugs were concealed in pepper sauce, star-apples, pumpkins, cabbage, chowmein, ochro, false walls and bottoms of suitcases, shoe soles, and wigs, among other places. Despite the crafty ways drug peddlers attempt to use to smuggle illegal substances through the CJIA, the security agencies continue their pursuit to cripple the narco-trade.

Saturday’s busts are the first for February. In January, a Canadian citizen was caught with 9.5 kilogrammes of cocaine concealed in false walls in his checked luggage while in-transit at CJIA. He had flown from Trinidad and Tobago.