Indian Man Wrongly Jailed In US For 1 Month After Perfume Mistaken For Opium
Officers discovered a small perfume bottle labelled “Opium”, a popular fragrance by Yves Saint Laurent (YSL), and allegedly assumed it contained the banned narcotic.
An Indian national living in the United States was detained for nearly a month after police mistook a bottle of perfume in his car for an illegal drug.
The incident occurred on May 3, 2025, when Kapil Raghu, who lives in Benton, Arkansas, was pulled over by local police for a minor traffic violation, The Guardian reported. During the stop, officers discovered a small perfume bottle labelled “Opium”, a popular fragrance by Yves Saint Laurent (YSL), and allegedly assumed it contained the banned narcotic.
Despite Raghu explaining that it was a branded perfume, officers arrested him for drug possession, as seen in bodycam footage released later. “You got a vial of opium that was in your center console. Go and take a seat,” an officer can be heard saying in the video.
Raghu, who is married to an American citizen and was in the process of applying for US citizenship, was subsequently detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for nearly 30 days.
'Arrest A Result Of Misunderstanding'
His lawyer, Mike Laux, said the arrest was a result of “a complete misunderstanding” and confirmed that all charges were later dropped.
The Arkansas State Crime Lab eventually confirmed that the substance in the bottle was perfume, not opium. However, Raghu spent three days in Saline County Jail, where officials found an “administrative/legal error” indicating that his visa had expired. ICE officers then transferred him to a federal immigration detention facility in Louisiana, where he remained for a month.
Speaking to THV11, Raghu said his family endured emotional distress during his detention. “She [my wife] used to call me every night, crying. My stepdaughter was crying a lot. She was even planning to sell her cars and move to another country,” he recalled.
The charges were formally dropped by a district court judge on May 20, but the immigration hold disrupted Raghu’s path to permanent residency. His wife, Ashley Mays, said his work visa was revoked, and the couple has launched a fundraising campaign to cover legal expenses and reapply for visa reinstatement.
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