‘Mumbai is central transit point’

NCB officials have observed that Mumbai has become a central “transit point” for certain new age chemical drugs where narcotics coming out of sick factories and labs were being smuggled abroad in concealed export consignments. The kingpins remain elusive in foreign countries who control production operations here by tying up with young pharmacists desirous of making a quick buck or debt ridden factory owners.

Officials have named drugs like amphetamine, methamephetamine, ketamine and methaqualone, which are clandestinely produced in such establishments and then sent abroad. “All airport export courier takes place by mis-declaring consignments as something, followed by elaborate concealment methods. An item might be declared as a textile or wooden furniture component but the drug might be hidden inside the clothes’ folds or a hollow section inside a wooden log. Both the consignors’ and the consignees’ address is fake. Most of them are destined for the UK, Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong and we can’t intercept a package unless we are specifically tipped off about its export code or the batch number. Tip offs have to be very precise in these cases,” explained an NCB officer. This was validated by the unprecedented narcotics seizures at the Mumbai airport between 2012 to 2013 where all passengers – almost all African nationals – held with ketamine, amphetamine, methamephetamine and methaqualone were flying out of the country.

Cocaine however still comes from Mexico, Colombia and Peru in import packages. “A package would be carrying an engineering component like a shock absorber where the cocaine pack will be stuffed inside the hollow tube. A doll would have the drug hidden just beneath the surface where it needs to be scratched to retrieve the drug,” said another officer.