A South African woman was arrested at Calcutta airport on Tuesday night with 3.8kg of cocaine worth almost Rs 40 crore concealed inside the stitches of her trolley bag.

After her arrest, Narcotics Control Bureau officers made her call up the consignee who asked her to meet him at a guest house in Salt Lake. Police raided the house but the man had fled.

A bureau officer said they alerted the customs about the woman arriving by a Emirates flight from Dubai.

When she landed at 6pm, customs officers nabbed her. Packets of cocaine were found hidden between the stitches of her bag, the officer said.