Date:08/01/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/01/08/stories/2008010852200300.htm

New Delhi

Heroin worth crores seized

Staff Reporter

South African and J&K resident arrested for involvement in crime

23 kg heroin seized from their possession; another consignment found near Bhatinda
Drug is of Afghan origin and is smuggled through the Indo-Pakistan border, says DRI

NEW DELHI: A South African national and a resident of Jammu and Kashmir have been arrested by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) on charges of their involvement in an international heroin trafficking syndicate.

The agency claims to have seized 23 kg of heroin worth over Rs.20 crore in the international market from their possession.

The DRI sleuths recently received inputs about suspicious involvement of a young man from Jammu in drug trafficking.

Developing the tip-off, they zeroed in on him and found that he was about to deliver a consignment to a foreign national at Guru Nanak Nagar in Tilak Nagar on Saturday. Subsequently, the agency laid a trap at the rendezvous point and arrested the accused along with the South African national who allegedly received the consignment of 11 kg.

During interrogation, the South African national disclosed that he was here on a four-month tourist visa. He allegedly confessed to having collected two more consignments, one of 10 kg and the other of 5 kg, from the drug peddler. Another accused told the DRI that he had kept 12 kg of heroin in his relative’s house at Kot Kapoora near Bhatinda in Punjab. At his instance, the DRI sleuths mounted a raid there and seized the consignment. The agency found that the relative of the accused did not have a clue about the stuff.

The agency has not revealed the name of both the accused as the operation to track down their accomplices in the Capital is still on.

The seized heroin is of Afghan origin and was smuggled in through the Indo-Pakistan border, as has been found in several previous cases.

The seizures made by the DRI in the recent past have indicated to a spurt in the smuggling of heroin from Pakistan.

While in the last financial year the agency had seized over 200 kg of heroin, in the current financial year they have already crossed 260 kg and roughly three more months are still left. Most of the consignments intercepted by the Delhi unit of the DRI were smuggled in through Punjab.

Besides, the agency made huge seizure of counterfeit currency notes smuggled in from countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Dubai last year.