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Kerala drug bust: Pak cartel sending drugs into India via seas, says NCB
The Indian Narcotics Control Bureau has prepared a draft charge sheet detailing how a Pakistani drug cartel is smuggling drugs into India via the seas.
The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) has prepared a draft charge sheet in the case of 2,500 kg of methamphetamine seized from a ship in the Indian Ocean, in which they have detailed how a cartel in Pakistan is sending drugs into India through the seas, officials aware of the matter said.
Identifying Pakistan based fugitive Haji Salim as the main culprit, the bureau has attached the statement of Pakistan national Zubair Derakshshandeh, who was arrested along with the drugs consignment.
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In the charge sheet, officials have said that Salim runs a drug cartel and has hundreds of people working under him, who work at the Makran coast near the Iran-Pakistan border. Some work as carriers and are paid between ₹3-5 lakhs, depending on the number of days they have to be in the ocean. Each trip from the point of origin to the handing over of drugs to smaller ships last between 10-21 days, officials said, declining to be named.
Derakshshandeh, a resident of Balochistan in Pakistan, was promised around ₹3 lakh.
“The probe revealed that the couriers such as Zubair stayed in the mother ship at a prespecified location in the ocean for days and handed over the consignment to different boats. The couriers are paid to hand over the drugs from mother ship to smaller ships, which further take it to different countries,” an official said. “In this case, the drugs were meant for India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives.”
“Our probe revealed that another courier was told to bring the drugs back to India from Sri Lanka. They were doing this to avoid carrying the drug in bulk. But they were unlucky because we busted the mother ship before the transfer could happen,” the official added. “All this has been mentioned in the charge sheet.”
The probe also found out that two earlier cases busted by the agency off the Gujarat coast in February 2022 and another on in October 2022 off the Kerala coast were sent by Salim using the same cartel and by the same modus operandi. “There are many people like Zubair who have been working for Haji Salim. It is a large network. Zubair was with him for over four years.”
On May 13, the NCB in a joint operation with Indian Navy made the largest seizure of methamphetamine (2,500 kg) from a mother ship in the Indian Ocean near the Kerala coast. A mother ship is a large vessel carrying huge quantities of narcotics for distribution to smaller boats along its route.
“In this case, too, we noticed that the Salim cartel uses the jute bags of a rice company based in Pakistan,” the official said. “There is a common link that connects all the three cases.”
In January 2022, the NCB launched Operation Samundragupt, under which they intercept contraband brought into India through the maritime route. As part of the operation, the agency has been working with the intelligence wing of the Indian Navy, department of revenue intelligence, and police forces of coastal states to intercept the illicit drugs.
