Date:01/07/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/07/01/stories/2008070159840500.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Heroin worth Rs.62 lakh seized

Special Correspondent

CHENNAI: In its fifth seizure of heroin since January this year, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) on Monday seized Rs.62-lakh worth of heroin at a courier office here.

On a tip-off, DRI officers intercepted 620 gm of heroin stashed away in two parcels with airway bills booked at Tirupati against a New Delhi address. Since the beginning of the year, the DRI has seized 4,432 kg of heroin from Chennai alone, besides intercepting 2,220 kg of the substance in Hyderabad.

If heroin smugglers tried to conceal the white powder inside the hard-bound wrapper of children’s books booked as courier parcels to Canada and Holland during a seizure in February, this time, the modus operandi was trickier. The sleuths who examined one of the parcels with a U.S. address found three gift-wrapped polythene packs concealed in the hollow space of a Ganesa idol. Tests on the white powder in these packs confirmed the substance as heroin. The other parcel with an address in Spain had framed pictures of Guru Nanak and Sai Baba.

At a closer look, the officers detected four cavities in between the cardboard boxes, with each carrying eight polythene packs. Further investigation is on, says a DRI press release.