Kochi, 7 Oct: An Iranian fishing vessel with around 200 kg of heroin worth over Rs 1,200 crore has been seized in a joint operation by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) and the Indian Navy, the NCB said on Friday.
\nSanjay Kumar Singh, Deputy Director General (operations) of the NCB, who met reporters here, said the agency has arrested six Iran nationals and the boat, along with the heroin, was brought to Mattancherry wharf here.
\n\u201cThe NCB has now seized the vessel and 200 kg of heroin. The six Iranian crew members have also been arrested under relevant sections of the NDPS Act, 1985,\u201d Singh said, adding that interrogation was on.
\nHe said the drug was found in 200 packets each of which has markings and packing specialties unique to Afghanistan- and Pakistan-based drug cartels.
\n\u201cWhile some of the drug packets had \u2018Scorpion\u2019 seal markings, the others had \u2018dragon\u2019 seal markings. The drug was also packed in a waterproof seven-layered packing. Preliminary investigation revealed that the seized drug was sourced from Afghanistan and was transported to Pakistan. This consignment was then loaded into the now-seized vessel off Pakistan coast in a mid-sea exchange,\u201d NCB said. (PTI)
\nThe agency said the vessel then set sail to Indian waters for further delivery of the consignment to a Sri Lankan vessel.
\nIt said efforts were made to identify and intercept this Sri Lankan vessel but it couldn\u2019t be traced.
\nSingh said the accused tried to escape by jumping into the sea and also tried to dump the consignment into the waters.
\nThe NCB said trafficking Afghan heroin into India through Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean into India has exponentially increased over the last few years.
\n\u201cThe southern route for trafficking of heroin from Afghanistan i.e. from Afghanistan to Makran coast of Iran and Pakistan and then onwards to various countries in the Indian Ocean Region including India has gained prominence over the last few years,\u201d Singh said.
\nEven though the dhow was seized and brought to Mattancherry on Thursday itself, the officials did not divulge any details until today\u2019s press meet by Singh. (PTI)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kochi, 7 Oct: An Iranian fishing vessel with around 200 kg of heroin worth over Rs 1,200 crore has been seized in a joint operation by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) and the Indian Navy, the NCB said on Friday. Sanjay Kumar Singh, Deputy Director General (operations) of the NCB, who met reporters here, said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-202184","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-national"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202184\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}