India’s Narcotics Control Bureau says it has dismantled a trafficking network running narcotics from Nepal through India and on to Sri Lanka by sea, arresting five people including a Sri Lankan refugee.
A joint operation by the NCB’s Chennai Zonal Unit and its Hyderabad Zonal Unit seized more than 77 kilograms of hashish oil and two kilograms of charas, Ada Derana reported. India’s public broadcaster All India Radio put the same figures at 77.6kg and 2kg, with the hashish oil recovered in Tamil Nadu and the charas in Telangana.
The route
Investigators say the consignments entered India from Kathmandu, Nepal, crossing at the Sonauli border post in Uttar Pradesh, then travelled the length of the country to the Tamil Nadu coast.
Roughly 78 kilograms of hashish oil had already been delivered by the suspects to Thoothukudi, the southern Indian port opposite Sri Lanka’s northwest coast, from where it was to be taken out into the Gulf of Mannar and handed to a Sri Lankan receiver mid-sea. A fishing boat was recovered along with two cars and a motorcycle.
The NCB has not said whether the maritime handover took place before the arrests, or whether any part of the consignment reached Sri Lanka.
Context
The Palk Strait and Gulf of Mannar remain the principal narcotics corridor into Sri Lanka, with fishing vessels used to move consignments the short distance between the Indian and Sri Lankan coasts. Sri Lankan authorities have repeatedly intercepted heroin and hashish transferred at sea rather than landed at ports.
Hashish oil is a concentrated cannabis extract. Indian agencies valued the total seizure at about Rs. 10 crore (roughly 100 million Indian rupees).
Investigations continue into others involved in the network. No Sri Lankan agency has commented, and no verified Sri Lankan newsroom other than Ada Derana had carried the case at the time of writing.
