Portuguese man sentenced to 10 yrs for smuggling 3 kg cocaine

CHENNAI: A Portuguese national who was caught with 3.015 kg cocaine at Chennai airport six years ago has been found guilty and sentenced to 10 years in prison despite his best efforts to convince the court that he came to India to promote “cultural and heritage” tourism among BRICS nations.

The accused, Dias Coimbra Lourenco Armando Rui, a 65-year-old, had landed at Chennai airport on May 12, 2018. He was travelling from Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Officials of the DRI (Directorate of Revenue Intelligence) who had received a tip-off about cocaine smuggling had intercepted the air passenger on his arrival and on perusing his checked-in baggage, officials found the cocaine stashed inside a UPS (unlimited power supply) device.

He was arrested and has been in judicial custody till date. When the case came for trial before the special court for NDPS (Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances) act cases, the accused who argued his case himself told the court that he had no idea about the UPS in the baggage and claimed that the padlock in his checked-in baggage was tampered with.

“I have a degree in tourism specialised in Cultural and Heritage tourism from a university in Spain and was working for a travel company, ‘Agencia Abreu’, to increase tourism among the people of BRICS alliance countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa),” the accused had deposed before the court.

He further contended that he had to pass stringent checkups at Sao Paulo airport including the Drug Controller Scanner and similar checks were held at Dubai Airport, too.

The accused claimed that one officer informed that there was a huge quantity of drugs inside his trolley bag and he was told that the death penalty would be imposed if more than 500 grams of Cocaine is smuggled to India and questioned him. The accused claimed that he was psychologically coerced to confess that he had brought that UPS with drugs concealed inside.

Additional Special Judge, J Juliet Pushpa noted the prosecution’s contention that the trolley bag was found wrapped with red colour polythene covering which were confirmed by the eyewitness statements, too. “Moreover there is no motive for the prosecution to falsely implicate the accused in this case, “ the court noted and sentenced the accused to 10 years’ imprisonment.

The court also imposed a fine of Rs 2 lakh on the accused and held that the time already spent in prison by the accused shall be set off from his sentence period.