American 'tourist', couple nabbed with 11kg heroin in Tanzania

Dar es Salaam. The Drugs Control and Enforcement Authority (DCEA) has nabbed a US national from Ohio State, Loniel Royford (63), with heroin weighing 2.18kg.

Speaking to The Citizen on Friday, the DCEA Commissioner for Operations, Frederick Milanzi said  Royford arrived in the country on June 29, introducing himself as a tourist, but was suspected as he was leaving the country on July 4, this year.

“We were suspicious of him. How come a tourist enters the country and stays for a few days. So we searched him at Mwalimu Julius Nyerere International Airport,” says Milanzi.

 He said although an X-Ray machine failed to detect the drugs on him and in his luggage, police did not allow him to leave the country.

“These people use high level techniques. This is because when we inspected him thoroughly we discovered he had unsewn some part of his bag and inserted a special cloth that was not easily sensed by the X-ray machine, making it hard to know whether there were narcotics or not,” he said.

Malinzi further explained that even when they ransacked his bags and removed all the contents they did see no drugs. He said after undoing the sewing they found drugs of the heroin type weighing 2.18kg.

“We took them to the government Chief Chemist who confirmed it to be heroin,” he said.

In another incidence, two other US nationals of Indian origin, husband and wife, were apprehended on June 28 at Kilimanjaro International Airport (KIA) with 8.9kg of heroin.

Mr Milanzi named the suspected couple as Intiaz Hussein Sheikh (53) and his wife Miranda Sheikh (61). 

“Information about them originated from our headquarters here and we sent one of our officials to KIA and he cooperated with police there until they managed to catch the suspects,” said Milanzi, adding that the suspected couple had six bags and three of them contained the drugs.