Drug worth 3 crore seized, 2 held

NCB officials said that the suspected men, identified as Thamin Basha (34) and Sait (31) hailing from Kancheepuram district, were intercepted at the Chennai Central railway station before they boarded the train to Kolkata. “The seized ephedrine was supposed to reach Malaysia via Kolkata and was concealed in packets of a food production brand. Twelve such duly sealed packets were carried in trolley bags,” noted Bruno A, zonal officer, NCB.

Ephedrine is controlled substance under NDPS Act and its possession without a valid licence is punishable up to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment. Officials noted that ephedrine is the most important precursor to manufacture methamphetamine, a widely abused party drug, which has a huge demand in Malaysia. 

The officials further explained that the intense screening in major airports like Chennai and Bengaluru seems to have forced the smugglers to use the rail route to push the contraband. The NCB sleuths had already seized more than 75 kg of ephedrine, 4.1 kg of cocaine and 0.75 kg of heroin besides LCD blots and 300 kg of ganja in the past 10 months. It may be noted that last month the NCB had seized 10 kg of ephedrine parcel from air cargo section in Kochi airport. 

The parcel was booked from a fictitious address in Chennai. Also, in one of the largest seizures of narcotics, the Chennai unit of Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) raided a ‘detergent’ manufacturing godown at Red Hills and seized 11 kg of methamphetamine, 56 kg of pseudo ephedrine and 90 kg of low quality heroin, all valued approximately at Rs 71 crore in June.