Customs officials at the city airport seized 18 kg of ketamine worth Rs 1.8 crore from a passenger’s bag, who was scheduled to board a Malaysian Airlines flight to Kuala Lumpur on Monday.
The passenger Syed Shamsuddin was apprehensive and didn’t appear for immigration check, and slipped out of the airport unnoticed when he was asked to report near the in-line baggage counter through the public announcement system.
Shamsuddin, who was to board the MH 181 flight from Chennai to Kuala Lumpur deposited his checked-in baggage and took the boarding pass.
But he didn’t go in for the immigration check.
The security in-charge of the in-line baggage system, who found something suspicious in a travel bag and a cardboard box, requested the airline for the presence of the passenger to open it.
Hearing the announcement, the passenger quietly escaped.
“The passenger, anticipating trouble, might have waited for a longer period in the ground floor instead of entering the sterile area by completing immigration formalities. That way, he was able to easily mix with others and escape,” said an airport employee.