The Narcotics Control Bureau, in a joint operation with the Indian Navy, seized drugs worth Rs 2,000 crore from high seas near Porbandar off the Gujarat coast on Friday midnight.
Officials said that the seizure included “529 kilogram of very high quality hashish, 234 kilogram of finest quality crystal Methaphetamine and some quantity of heroin”.
This is the first such operation in which such a huge amount of seizures have been made in high seas.
The NCB had shared the inputs of trafficking of drugs with the Naval Intelligence Unit. Sources close to the NCB said that the agency has been working on such intelligence inputs and will work with the Indian Navy to carry out operations.
“The present seizure has dealt a blow to drug syndicates based out of the neighbouring country, who were using maritime route for proliferation of drugs in India and other countries,” said officials.
Investigation into the case is expected to shed more light on the cross-border link of the drugs coming from Pakistan, especially through the Gujarat coast which has seen huge hauls in the last few months like the Mundra drug hauls case.
Meanwhile in another case, the NCB busted a drug trafficking network using dark web where crypto currency was used. The operation was launched after the Kolkata zonal unit identified 44 post parcels.
During the initial investigation, searches led to recovery of 30 gm of curated marijuana (imported) and 0.45 gm MDMA (pills). It was revealed that the accused ordered drugs through dark net and used social media like WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram, Snapchat and Wickrme for placing drug orders and used India Posts, Couriers, Swiggy Gini, Wefast, Porter etc. as the delivery partners.
The payments were being accepted through UPI and crypto currencies, said Gyaneshwar Singh, deputy director general of the NCB .
Simultaneous raids at several places in Surat, Pune, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Darjeeling, Delhi, Ghaziabad, Ranchi and Guwahati brought into light the role of more people. Almost all the accused were young professionals such as engineers, doctors, financial consultants, businessmen and artists such as musicians and school dropouts. Twenty-two arrests have been made in the case so far .
