Guinean national sentenced to 7 years in prison for smuggling cocaine into Seychelles
According to ANB, Mario Cá from Guinea Bissau pleaded guilty to the offence. (Anti-Narcotics Bureau)
(Seychelles News Agency) - A Guinean national has been sentenced to seven years in prison by the Seychelles Supreme Court for the importation of a controlled drug, the Anti-Narcotics Bureau (ANB) said on Thursday.
According to ANB, Mario Cá from Guinea Bissau pleaded guilty to the offence and was sentenced on October 21.
The 44-year-old was arrested on June 5 after 824g of cocaine was detected hidden inside his body after arriving in Seychelles on board an Ethiopian Airlines flight.
The Guinean national is the second foreigner to be convicted by the Supreme Court for the importation of a controlled drug in the past two months. In August, a Togo national also received a seven-year prison sentence after he was arrested on March 5 at the Seychelles international airport in possession of 762g of cocaine.
Meanwhile, a Zimbabwean national who was arrested in connection with a seizure of 2kg of heroin has been remanded for 11 days by the Magistrate's Court, ANB said on Wednesday.
The Bureau said that the Seychelles Police Force made the drug bust on October 25 and the 45-year-old woman from Zimbabwe was arrested the following day.
The Zimbabwean national will be back in court on November 9.
Seychelles, a group of 115 islands in the western Indian Ocean, has a zero-tolerance policy towards trafficking and importation of illegal drugs. If found guilty, the maximum sentence is life imprisonment.