Drug trafficking
The two huge drug hauls in Mumbai and Gujarat in recent days, both on tip-offs by the Punjab Police, point to the scale of the illegal trade and on a positive note, the teamwork shown by investigating agencies in the fight against drugs. The Navi Mumbai Police found 72.5 kg of heroin, worth Rs 362 crore, concealed in a container shipped from the UAE; it had been lying at a freight station probably for six months. Just three days earlier, Punjab cops, in tandem with the Gujarat Police, recovered 75 kg of heroin, valued at Rs 375 crore in the international market, from a container at Mundra port, also sourced from the UAE. The heroin, found hidden among 4,000 kg of clothing material, was meant to be smuggled to Punjab. Only last September, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence intercepted three containers from Iran at Mundra with heroin worth a whopping Rs 21,000 crore.
The Punjab Police claim to have arrested 676 drug smugglers and suppliers under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act in a week-long operation. The disruption in the supply chain, officials say, has led to peddlers selling ‘duplicate heroin’ to the poor by mixing sweet powder, washing soda, weed-killers and herbicides. Another worrying revelation followed a surprise screening of about 6,000 inmates in 11 Punjab jails. Most were found addicted to one drug or the other. Over 40 per cent had enrolled themselves for de-addiction, a large number of them with no previous record of substance abuse.
A drug bust by the Narcotics Control Bureau a few months ago sent alarm bells ringing as it uncovered a pan-India ring that used the darknet, or anonymous proxy networks, and crypto currency to traffic narcotic substances. The federal agency has flagged concerns of an increase in the consumption of drugs among the youth, and traffickers reinventing strategies prompted by Covid-19 restrictions — using courier services, for instance — to traffic drugs ordered online or on darknet sites where tracking is not very easy. As the challenges posed by the drug mafia mount, including the exponential rise in drone drops from across the border, enhanced coordination, dedicated units and a technological deep-dive can provide law enforcers an edge.
