A 32-year-old woman had been arrested by the police at RG International Airport in Shamshabad here on Sunday who carried about 40 packets of narcotic substance in stomach. The substance is believed to be cocaine, with an estimated worth of Rs 50 lakh. Doctors at Osmania General Hospital here on Monday removed 420 gram of a narcotic substance, stashed in 40 packets, from the uro-genital tract of a South African national.

The woman named ‘Mosiea Moosa’ landed at RG International Airport from Dubai on an Emirates flight in Shamshabad on Sunday. She was stopped at the airport after Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) personnel grew suspicious about her during a body scan. Later, it was found she had concealed a narcotic substance in small packets inside her body.

The NCB officers realized she was not really pregnant, as she had claimed, but was carrying some banned substance in her urogenital tract or stomach. “Initially we noticed she was walking with great difficulty. When we asked her she said she was in the seventh month of pregnancy. But a scan revealed she was carrying several pouches,” said an NCB officer.

The South African national was first taken to a corporate hospital near the airport, where she admitted that packets of narcotics were concealed in her body.

She was later shifted to Osmania Hospital and kept under medical supervision. A series of tests were conducted by doctors, who then gave her laxatives to extract the pouches.

“So far, 40 pouches have been taken out. The process is still on (to take out the remaining pockets),” said Narendra, RMO at Osmania General Hospital (OGH). No surgery was done on the woman and the concealed substance was taken out using appropriate medical methods, the official said. “The woman is healthy and there is no danger to her health,” said hospital sources.

Some more packets of the suspected narcotic were still inside the woman’s body, he said, adding that a final report would be prepared after the process was over.

The woman had been arrested at the Airport on Sunday and was taken into custody by Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) sleuths after they scrutinized the visa markings on her passport.

Her South African passport revealed she— a South African national had been to Dubai and then Sao Paulo, Brazil, which is a known cocaine market. She was supposed to return to Johannesburg on September 10.

Meanwhile, the NCB sleuths were questioning the woman to identify the person or people to whom she was to deliver the drugs so that to find out the financiers of the trade of which the narcotics were a part.