Photo for representational purposes only by Public Health Image Library (left) and Bishnu Sarangi / Pixabay (right)
We know Indian weddings are a costly affair but a special set of wedding invites that turned up at Bengaluru Airport are estimated to be worth Rs 5 crore (around $700,000). No, it’s not because they used some fancy ink on an environment-friendly paper studded with diamonds (you know Indian weddings can pull off that shit), but because drugs worth that much were secretly stashed inside them. Oh, and it was all for a fake wedding.
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From hiding hash inside slippers to stuffing foreign currency notes into peanuts, Indians have been doing all kinds of jugaad to get away with illegal stuff. But on Friday, February 21, the courier terminal at the Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru got a package of wedding cards that seemed unusually heavy. "Preliminary scanning of the package indicated concealment of powder,” said MJ Chethan, Joint Commissioner of Customs, in a statement. ”Detailed examination of the package was done and it was found to contain 43 invitation cards and garments.”
The drug found once these invites were cut open with a scissor was ephedrine, a controlled substance under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985. While ephedrine can be found in nasal drops, it is often illegally used by college students for its performance enhancing qualities and as an appetite suppressant for people trying to lose weight the wrong way.
The drugs were being exported to Australia from someone based in Madurai. Authorities also believe it is part of an elaborate international drug racket after the same drug was found hidden inside garment spools on Tuesday, February 18.Follow Shamani Joshi on Instagram.