Visitor to UAE denies carrying cocaine in coffee blender box

Dubai: A Nigerian visitor has claimed he was unaware that he was transporting cocaine in a coffee blender box when he was stopped at the airport, a court has heard.

"I was not aware that I was carrying cocaine ... I am not guilty," argued the 35-year-old Nigerian suspect when he denied the charges of smuggling drugs in transit before the Dubai Court of First Instance.

Prosecutors accused the suspect, S.E., of smuggling and possessing 3.3kg of cocaine via transit. According to the arraignment sheet, airport inspectors discovered the cocaine hidden inside a coffee blender box and a vacuum cleaner box.

When asked by Presiding Judge Al Saeed Mohammad Barghout what happened, S.E. defended himself in courtroom four, saying: "A person handed me the bag at the airport from where I was coming ... and asked me to deliver it to someone in Nigeria.

"I asked that person to open the bag and have it searched by the police. The police searched the bag and said it was okay ... I didn't know that it was cocaine," he said.

An anti-narcotics police sergeant testified that he thought the visitor looked suspicious when he was at Dubai International Airport's transit terminal.

"I took him in for search," the sergeant told the court.

"The scanning machine exposed a suspicious substance placed inside one of his bags. ... that contained two boxes ... the sides of the boxes were thick and stuffed with something. The cocaine was hidden inside nylon sacks which were covered with tape."