NB Explains | India's massive drug haul: Navy, NCB seizes 2500 kgs of drugs worth Rs 12,000 crore off the Kochi coast; Pakistani man held

Kochi, May 14: In India's biggest drug bust so far, Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) and the Indian Navy confiscated approximately 2,500 kg of high-purity methamphetamine or crystal meth worth around 12,000 crore rupees from the Kochi coast. A Pakistani native has been detained, the anti-drug agency said on Saturday.

 

 

 

The retrieved bags, the suspected Pakistani national, the speed boat, and some other goods seized from the "mother ship" were taken at Mattancherry Wharf in Kochi and given to NCB for further action.

 

 

This major operation undertaken under Operation Samudragupt was conducted jointly by the Indian Navy and the NCB officials. The Indian authorities were alerted after receiving a tip-off about 15 days ago. This led to the identification of a vessel that was intercepted by the Indian Navy. The suspected Pakistani was apprehended during this operation.

 

The NCB, in a statement, said the drug cache had started on a “mother ship” — a large vessel that distributes narcotics to several boats during its journey — from the Makran coast around Pakistan and Iran.

 

“In all, 134 sacks of suspected methamphetamine, a Pakistani national, the intercepted boat and some other items salvaged from the ship were brought to Mattancherry Wharf in Kochi, Kerala, and handed over by the Navy to the NCB,” it said.

 

“The NCB has initiated the seizure procedure. The primary analysis is that all packets contain methamphetamine of high purity,” the anti-drug agency said.

 

“As the seizure procedures are still underway, the exact quantity of methamphetamine recovered is not clear yet. However, from the number of packets seized, we estimate it to be around 2,700 kg,” the NCB said. The NCB, in the statement, also said Sri Lanka and Maldives also shared inputs with the Indian authorities that led to the current seizure.

 

 

 

The NCB has now made three big drug trafficking-related seizures in the last 18 months, all involving the southern route.

 

The first seizure in the operation was made in February 2022 when a joint team of the NCB and the Navy seized 529 kg of hashish, 221 kg of methamphetamine and 13 kg of heroin from the high seas off the coast of Gujarat, all sourced from Baluchistan (a region in Pakistan) and Afghanistan, the agency said.

 

Subsequently, an Iranian boat was intercepted off the coast of Kerala in a joint operation by NCB and Indian Navy in October 2022 and a total of 200 kg of high-grade heroin, also sourced from Afghanistan, was seized and six Iranian drug traffickers were arrested, it said.

 

Thereafter, sharing of real-time actionable information, generated during the operation, with Sri Lanka and Maldives led to seizure of hundreds of kilograms of heroin and methamphetamine and arrest of 19 drug traffickers in two operations conducted by Sri Lankan Navy in December 2022 and April 2023, the agency said.

 

 

Operation Samudragupt was launched in January 2022 to combat maritime trafficking of heroin and other drugs in the Indian Ocean region. Launched by NCB director general Satya Narayan Pradhan, Operation Samudragupt is headed by Sanjay Kumar Singh, deputy director general (Ops).