₹1,526 cr heroin seized off Lakshadweep coast has Pak link: Revenue officials

The Coast Guard had intercepted two Indian fishing boats - Prince and Little Jesus - moving suspiciously near Agatti island in Lakshadweep on May 18 and had taken them to Kochi.

The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) on Sunday said 220 kg of heroin seized off the Lakshadweep coast about two days ago by a joint team of DRI and the Coast Guard has a link with Pakistan.

The Indian Coast Guard and Directorate of Revenue Intelligence apprehended drugs worth over ₹1,526 crore from two fishing boats named ‘Prince’ and ‘Little Jesus’ off the coast of Lakshadweep islands in the Arabian Sea on Friday. (ANI PHOTO.)

In the remand report of 20 crew members of two fishing boats, the central agency said some of them were in regular touch with their agents in Pakistan. Heroin was packed in the name of a sugar mill in Pakistan and its final destination was India, it said in the report. Among those arrested two are from Kerala and the rest from Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka. The DRI is yet to disclose the names and other details of the accused. The National Investigation Agency team also questioned the accused.

The team had intercepted two Indian fishing boats named, Prince and Little Jesus, moving suspiciously near Agatti island in Lakshadweep on May 18 and had taken them to Kochi. On questioning, some of the crew confessed that they received heroin on the high seas and later they had concealed them in both boats.

Watch | Coast Guard hunts down, catches ships carrying 1,520 crore in drugs

An official statement later said an operation was launched by the DRI after it developed specific intelligence inputs that two Indian boats would be sailing from the coast of Tamil Nadu and receive narcotics in large quantity somewhere in the Arabian Sea, during the second or third week of May.

Based on these inputs, a joint operation of the DRI with the Coast Guard codenamed “Operation Khojbeen” was launched on May 7 and under the operation, Coast Guard ship Sujeet, with DRI officials onboard, maintained a close watch near the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). After several days of continuous search and monitoring amid rough seas, two boats were noticed moving towards India and intercepted, said the statement.