KARACHI, Oct 10: The Anti-Narcotics Force, Sindh, arrested three persons at the Karachi airport on Thursday while they were about to board a Bangkok-bound flight. Heroin-filled capsules swallowed by them were recovered, an ANF press release said.

The passengers were identified as Saeed Ahmed Khan, son of Azeem Bakhsh Khan, Saif-ur-Rehman, son of Abdul Rehman (both residents of Rahimyar Khan) and Syed Arshad Ali, son of Syed Sharbat Ali (a resident of Karachi).

They had swallowed the heroin capsules before arriving at the airport.

ANF said a case was registered against them and investigation was in progress.

The ANF noted that the trend of smuggling heroin by concealing it in the stomach was on the rise. This year, the Sindh ANF had arrested 72 persons carrying such capsules in the stomach while attempting to smuggle narcotics to different countries, like Malaysia, Thailand and Hungary.

In the past, only African nationals, especially Nigerians, had been found carrying heroin and other narcotics in the stomach in the form of capsules but this year, Pakistani men and women and citizens of Central Asian countries were also found resorting to such methods, said the ANF release.—APP