THE Arik Air hostess, Chinwendu  Uwakaonyenma Ogbonnaya, who was arrested  by the United Kingdom security agents on December 18, 2011 for smuggling hard drugs, has been sentenced to five and half years imprisonment by the U.K judiciary.

The development came even as the Managing Director of the airline, Chris Ndulue, hinted of the ongoing efforts being made by the airline management to invest heavily on the acquisition of more sophisticated gadgets that would make detection of drug trafficking much easier.

During an interactive session with aviation journalists on Friday, Ndulue,  who described the action of the affected crew member as regrettable, vowed that such a development will never happen again.

Ogbonnaya, 29, who was caught with a quarter of a million pounds worth of cocaine but pleaded guilty to the charge, had flown from Lagos, Nigeria into London’s Heathrow airport as a member of crew on the Nigerian flag carrier flight.

After serving her jail term in London,  Ogbonnaya would be deported back to Nigeria.

According to information gathered, the U.K Border Agency officers at the airport’s crew clearance facility, during the search conducted on  her luggage revealed that she was carrying a rucksack with a false back. Officers had discovered packages of cocaine hidden behind the false back.

Forensic  tests later showed the packages contained approximately two kilos of high purity cocaine, which if cut and sold on the UK streets would have had a value of around £250,000 (about N60m).

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