NCB-Navy seize 2500 kg of methamphetamine off Kochi; 1 held

CHENNAI: In what is touted to be the largest seizure of Methamphetamine in the country, Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in a joint operation with the Indian Navy seized 2500 kgs of the drug from a ship on Kochi waters on Saturday.

The value of the seized drugs is said to be Rs 12,000 crore and a suspected Pakistani national has been detained.

According to the NCB, this is the first interception of a 'mothership' carrying drugs by an Indian agency.

Motherships are large sea-going vessels carrying large quantities of narcotic contrabands for distribution to receiving vessels over the route.

The NCB had launched Operation Samudragupt in January 2022 to annihilate the threat to national security emanating from maritime trafficking of drugs.

Accordingly, NCB exchanged and gathered information from other agencies such as DRI (Directorate of Revenue Intelligence), ATS (Anti Terrorism Squad) Gujarat, Indian Navy's intelligence wing among others, as part of which the teams had cultivated numerous domestic and international assets.

As part of the continuing efforts, NCB sleuths received intelligence from Indian Navy about movement of a mother ship in Indian waters after which assets were mobilized and a close watch over the input was maintained by the team.

"The continuous intelligence collection and analysis resulted in the identification of a highly probable route that the mother ship would take for distribution of contraband. Accordingly, these details were shared with Indian Navy and an Indian Naval Ship was deployed in the vicinity. Based on this input, a large sea going vessel was intercepted by Navy. 134 sacks of suspected Methamphetamine was recovered from the ship and a suspected Pakistani national was also detained," an official release said adding that the pakistani national was in a speed boat.

The recovered sacks, Pakistani national, the intercepted boat and some other items salvaged from the mother ship were brought to Mattancherry Wharf, Cochin on Saturday and handed over to NCB for further action.

NCB said that the exact quantity of methamphetamine recovered is not clear yet, but conservative estimates peg the seizure to be around 2500 kgs.

This is the third major drug bust by NCB with respect to maritime trafficking in the last 18 months as part of operation Samudragupt. In February 2022, the team had seized 529kg of Hashish, 221kg of Methamphetamine and 13kg of Heroin in the high seas off the coast of Gujarat, all sourced from Baluchistan and Afghanistan.

Subsequently, in October 2022, a total of 200 kg of high grade Heroin sources from Afghanistan was seized and six Iranian drug traffickers were arrested in the operation.