Beauty pageant runner-up arrested at Mumbai airport with drugs worth nearly ₹12 crore from Bangkok

A 29-year-old private bank employee and former beauty pageant runner-up was arrested at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport after Customs officials allegedly seized 11.8 kg of hydroponic marijuana worth an estimated ₹11.8 crore from her luggage.

The accused, identified as Harsha Sunny, had arrived from Bangkok when officers of the Air Intelligence Unit and Customs Department stopped her for inspection after noticing suspicious behaviour. A search of her trolley bag allegedly led to the recovery of 12 vacuum-sealed packets containing high-grade hydroponic weed.

Officials said a preliminary test using an NDPS field-testing kit confirmed the substance to be marijuana. Sunny, who works as a relationship manager with a private bank and was a runner-up in a Kerala beauty pageant last year, claimed she was unaware of the contents of the bag and had agreed to carry it for a person she met during her trip.

She has been arrested under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act and remanded to judicial custody. Investigators are now probing possible links to a wider drug trafficking network.

The arrest comes days after another hydroponic weed seizure near the India-Nepal border in Uttar Pradesh, where authorities recovered more than 2.3 kg of the contraband valued at around ₹1 crore and arrested a Tamil Nadu resident.