A 43-year-old Ugandan national who had swallowed about 90 cocaine-filled capsules was arrested at Bandaranaike International Airport on Sunday by officers of the Customs Narcotics Control Division, the Daily Mirror reported. The consignment is valued at more than Rs. 50 million.
The suspect, described as a farmer, swallowed the capsules in Entebbe before flying to Doha and on to Colombo, arriving on Qatar Airways flight QR-664 on Sunday morning.
He remained on the airport’s first floor until around midday. Customs officers, acting on intelligence received by the Narcotics Control Division, intercepted him there. During the operation he expelled 13 of the swallowed capsules.
He was handed over to the Airport Police Narcotics Bureau and taken to Negombo General Hospital, where doctors are carrying out further medical procedures to recover the capsules still inside him.
Correction: the scale of this case
An earlier version of this article reported that the suspect had swallowed 13 capsules in total. That figure was wrong. Thirteen is the number he expelled during the Customs operation — not the number he carried. The Daily Mirror’s fuller account puts the total swallowed at roughly 90, meaning the quantity involved is close to seven times what this article first described. The headline and body have been corrected.
The valuation gap was never a disagreement
This article previously reported an unresolved sevenfold conflict between the outlets on street value: Hiru News and Ada Derana put the cocaine at more than Rs. 50 million, while NewsFirst valued it at Rs. 7.245 million. The Daily Mirror’s capsule count resolves it, and the two figures turn out to agree.
NewsFirst weighed 13 capsules at approximately 161 grams — about 12.4 grams a capsule — and valued that quantity at Rs. 7.245 million, an implied rate of roughly Rs. 45,000 a gram.
Apply the same rate to the full consignment. Ninety capsules at 12.4 grams each is about 1,115 grams, and 1,115 grams at Rs. 45,000 comes to Rs. 50.2 million — matching the “more than Rs. 50 million” reported by Hiru, Ada Derana and the Daily Mirror.
The outlets were not using different prices. NewsFirst valued only what had been recovered at the airport; the others valued what the suspect was carrying. Both are correct for what they measure, and the per-gram rate is consistent across all four reports.
What each outlet contributed
Hiru News filed first and briefest: a foreign national held at Katunayake with cocaine worth over Rs. 50 million, and the suspect’s age of 43. It gave no weight, flight, agency or date.
NewsFirst supplied the route, the arresting unit, the weight of what was recovered and the hospital admission, but reported the 13 expelled capsules as though they were the whole quantity.
The Daily Mirror supplied the total swallowed, the interception at midday, the flight number and the suspect’s occupation — and, in doing so, reconciled the valuations.
Ada Derana also carried the story, matching the Rs. 50 million valuation. Its article could not be retrieved: the site has returned a CloudFront 403 block to every fetch attempt for several weeks, so it is not cited here.
Cocaine seizures at Bandaranaike International Airport have been running at a steady rate this year alongside a larger flow of Kush cases, including a businessman held on September 13 with 668g of Kush and two men detained the same day with 533 cartons of foreign cigarettes.
Not reported
No outlet names the suspect or says whether he has been produced before a magistrate. None states how many of the remaining capsules have since been recovered at Negombo General Hospital, or his condition — swallowed cocaine capsules carry a risk of fatal rupture, and none of the reports addresses it.
None says whether the Police Narcotics Bureau is treating the case as part of a wider Entebbe–Doha–Colombo trafficking route, or whether anyone was waiting to receive the consignment in Colombo. The exact total swallowed is given only as “around 90” and has not been confirmed by a medical count.
