By Biodun Busari

The Seychelles Police Force announced the arrest of an undisclosed 52-year-old woman trafficking cocaine at the country’s international airport on Thursday.

According to Seychelles News Agency, the East African country’s Supreme Court remanded the Nigerian female national over conspiracy to import and peddle a controlled drug, the police said on Monday.

The police said in a press statement the woman has been detained after she was arrested at the Seychelles International Airport on Thursday after her arrival on an Ethiopian Airline flight.

The arrest of the Nigerian followed a search, discovery, and seizure of 250 grammes of what was assumed to be cocaine.

In the report, the arrest of the Nigerian comes a little less than a year after the Zimbabwean female national, Elsie Esther Vambe, 45, was sentenced to five years in prison for the importation of a controlled drug and another five years for trafficking a controlled drug.

She was sentenced to five years in prison in April 2022 for the importation and trafficking of a controlled drug after she pleaded guilty to both offences.

The sentences will run concurrently, which means Vambe will be imprisoned for five years.

Last Friday, the police reported that two foreign male nationals were given prison sentences for the importation of cocaine.

A 58-year-old businessman from Nigeria, Patrick Ikechukwu Uwaoma, was sentenced to 30 years after he was found guilty of the importation of cocaine and a 42-year-old Nicaraguan, German Augusto Brook Dixon, was sentenced to five years in prison.

Seychelles’ archipelago in the western Indian Ocean, has a zero-tolerance policy towards the trafficking and importation of illegal drugs. There is a maximum sentence of life in prison if found guilty.