A Nigerian woman, Margret Mgbudom, has been arraigned before the Chief Judicial Magistrate Court in Navsari, Gujarat, India, for allegedly importing cocaine worth Rs 1.49 crore.

The Indian Express reported that Gujarat’s State Monitoring Cell seized the imported cocaine estimated at N256m from Mgbudom last Wednesday.

The 37-year-old has been in the custody of SMC since Wednesday.

According to the report, her case was first registered at the SMC police station on January 31, 2025.

The Nigerian woman, a resident of Meera Road in Mumbai, was booked under different sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act after the law enforcement agencies received intel on Tuesday.

Her car was then searched from Maharashtra during a surveillance drive on the highway and a forensic analysis confirmed the seized contraband to be 149.51 grams of cocaine.

The SMC arrested her on the spot, while the police seized her passport.

Speaking about her arraignment, SMC police inspector V C Jadeja said, “After primary interrogation, she disclosed that the drug is owned by a person named Elder in Nigeria. She got the drug from one Emmanuel of Mumbai, to get it delivered to a person in Surat. She hired a car from Mumbai and was on her way to Surat.

“We suspect that an international drug cartel is active in India and it is operated from Nigeria. The cocaine might have come from Nigeria through peddlers but it is the local members of the cartel in India who identify the customers and sell it at high rates.”