Ollie, a dog of the Airport Armed Police Battalion, has detected cocaine for the first time in Bangladesh.
A Tanzanian national was arrested with 200 grams of cocaine in a joint operation by the Dog Squad of the Airport Armed Police Battalion and the Narcotics Control Directorate at a residential hotel in Uttara.
The raid led to the discovery of the bag of drugs with the help of Ollie and his handler, Sunetra.
The foreigner was arrested with illegal drugs on Thursday evening.
Earlier, a Malawi citizen was arrested with 8.3kg of cocaine at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport on Wednesday. Subsequently, APBN and the DNC conducted a joint operation and raided the same hotel where the passenger from Malawi was staying.
Airport Armed Police Battalion Additional Superintendent of Police Mohammad Ziaul Haque said a joint team of Airport Armed Police and DNC conducted a raid at Hotel Afford Inn in Uttara after receiving a tip-off. The dog squad of Airport APBN also participated.
Tanzanian national Mohamedi Ali, 55, was in room number 102 on the second floor of the hotel. The raiding team arrested him, and he was later questioned about the drugs, but he denied any knowledge.
With the help of the dog squad, Mohamedi Ali’s room was searched, and the sniffer dog identified a black bag. When the bag was manually searched, 200 grams of cocaine were recovered from a hidden pocket.
The international market value of the seized cocaine is around Tk25 lakh. Mohamedi Ali came to Dhaka via Addis Ababa-Doha on January 20.
Additional Superintendent of Police Mohammad Ziaul Haque informed that in 2017, the dog squad of Airport APBN started serving at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport. Although there were 8 dogs in the beginning, APBN currently has 22 dogs. All these dogs are good at detecting explosives and drugs.
A case under the Narcotics Control Act has been registered against the arrested Mohamedi Ali at the airport police station.