Dated: 13/05/2023
NARCOTICS CONTROL BUREAU
- Seizure of approximately 2500kg high-purity Methamphetamine sourced from Death Crescent valued at around Rs. 15,000 Cr in the Indian waters.
- One suspected Pakistani national was detained.
- Joint Operation by NCB and Indian Navy.
- 1st Interception of a ‘mothership’ carrying drugs by an Indian agency
- Seizure part of Operation Samudragupt targeting maritime trafficking of drugs originating from Afghanistan
- This is the 3rd major seizure effected by NCB w.r.t. Maritime trafficking through the southern route in the last one and half years.
- A total of approximately 3200 kg of Methamphetamine,500kg of Heroin, and 529 kg of Hashish seized in the Operation so far.
- Apart from NCB operations, inputs were shared with Sri Lanka & Maldives which resulted in seizures.
- India’s leadership in the maritime security of the region.
- The largest seizure of methamphetamine in the country.
Appreciating the threat to national security emanating from the maritime trafficking of Heroin and other drugs over the maritime route in the Indian Ocean region, the Director General, NCB launched Operation Samudragupt headed by Sh. Sanjay Kumar Singh, Deputy Director General (Ops), NCB, and comprising officers of the Operations Branch of NCB Headquarters in January 2022. The primary objective of the operation was to collect actionable inputs which could lead to the interdiction of ships carrying narcotics contraband. For this task, the team exchanged and gathered information from drug law enforcement agencies such as DRI, ATS Gujarat, etc., and intelligence agencies such as
Intelligence Wing of Indian Navy, NTRO, etc. The team also cultivated numerous domestic as well as intentional assets. Technological interventions were also deployed in generating actionable inputs.
The initial success of Operation Samudragupt was achieved in the month of February 2022 when a joint team of NCB and Indian Navy seized 529kg of Hashish, 221kg of Methamphetamine, and 13kg of Heroin on the high seas off the coast of Gujarat, all sourced from Baluchistan and Afghanistan. Further consistent efforts round clock surveillance by the team resulted in the interception of an Iranian boat off the
coast of Kerala in a joint operation by NCB and the Indian Navy in the month of October 2022.
A total of 200kg of high-grade Heroin sourced from Afghanistan was seized and six Iranian drug traffickers were arrested in the operation.
Apart from these operations enforced by NCB and Indian Navy, NCB also shared real-time actionable information generated during the course of Operation Samudragupt with Sri Lanka and Maldives. These inputs resulted in the seizure of 286kg of Heroin and 128kg of Methamphetamine with the arrest of 19 drug traffickers in two operations conducted by the Sri Lankan Navy in the months of December 2022 & April 2023 and 4kg of Heroin with the arrest of 5 drug traffickers by Maldivian Police in March 2023.
Continuing the efforts jointly with the Intelligence Wing of the Indian Navy, Intelligence about the movement of a ‘Mother Ship’ carrying a huge quantity of Methamphetamine from the Makran coast was generated (Mother Ships are large sea-going vessels carrying large quantities of narcotic contrabands for distribution to receiving vessels over the route). 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 the 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 the Navy. 134 sacks of suspected Methamphetamine were recovered from the ship and an Iranian national was also detained. The intercepted speedboat was occupied by one person who is suspected to be a Pakistani national. The recovered sacks, Pakistani national, the intercepted boat, and some other items salvaged from the mother ship were brought to Mattancherry Wharf, Cochin on 13/05/2023 and handed over to NCB for further action.
NCB has initiated the seizure procedures and the primary analysis is that all of the packets contain Methamphetamine. As the seizure procedures are still underway, the exact quantity of Methamphetamine recovered is not clear yet. However, from the number of packets recovered, we estimate it to be around 2500kg in a conservative estimate.
