News Analysis India

Tag: NCB arrest

  • Cruise drugs case: NCB arrests Nigerian national; 20 people held so far

    By PTI

    MUMBAI: The Narcotics Control Bureau arrested a Nigerian national on Sunday in connection with the cruise drugs party raid case, an NCB official said.

    With this, 20 people have so far been arrested by the NCB in connection with the case, including Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan, he said.

    Giving details of the latest arrest, the official said a team of the NCB laid a trap in suburban Goregaon and apprehended the accused, identified as Okaro Ouzama, “along with an intermediate quantity of cocaine” on Saturday.

    This is the second arrest of a foreign national in the case, the official said.

    Earlier also, the NCB had arrested a Nigerian in the case.

    The NCB is making effort to explore the foreign linkages in the case on the basis of interrogation of the all accused persons, the official said.

    He also said that two men, whom NCP leader and Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik had claimed as “outsiders” involved in the raid, were actually among the nine independent witnesses involved in the whole operation.

    He said the duo was not known to the NCB before October 2, when the raid was conducted on the Goa-bound ship.

    A total of nine independent witnesses were involved in the whole operation (cruise ship raid) and Manish Bhanushali and K P Gosavi were among them.

    “None of the independent witnesses, including the two (Bhanushali and Gosavi) were known to the NCB before October 2,” the official said.

    The NCB had earlier said all the allegations levelled against it in connection with the cruise ship raid were “baseless, motivated afterthoughts and prejudicial”.

    NCB’s Mumbai zonal director Sameer Wankhede had said the anti-drugs agency works professionally.

    “We do not see any political party and religion.

    We do our job professionally,” he added.

    Based on a tip-off, an NCB team raided the Goa-bound cruise ship on October 2 and claimed to have recovered banned drugs.

    The case took a political turn when NCP leader Nawab Malik on Wednesday claimed that the raid was “fake” and that “outsiders” were involved in it.

    On Saturday, Malik alleged that the NCB had initially detained 11 people from the Goa-bound cruise ship, but let off three of them, including the brother-in-law of a BJP leader, a couple of hours later.

     

  • NCB arrests two Sri Lankans in trans-border trafficking racket; heroin worth Rs 1,000 crore seized

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: Two Sri Lankan nationals have been arrested and about 100 kg of heroin worth an estimated Rs 1,000 crore seized as part of a probe involving a trans-border drugs-trafficking racket, the NCB said on Friday.

    MMM Nawas and Mohamed Afnas were nabbed from Chennai in Tamil Nadu, where they were living by concealing their real identities, and the drugs syndicate that they masterminded has its tentacles spread across Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Australia, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) said in a statement.

    The arrests and the subsequent seizure of about 100 kg of heroin in Sri Lanka, valued at about Rs 1,000 crore in the international market, came about after the NCB and its counterparts in the neighbouring country joined hands to probe a November, 2020 heroin seizure from a Sri Lankan fishing vessel, “Shenaya Duwa”, in the territorial waters of India.

    The NCB and the Indian Coast Guard intercepted the vessel near the Tuticorin Port and a search of it led to the recovery of 95.87 kg of heroin, 18.32 kg of methamphetamine, five pistols and magazines.

    Six Sri Lankan crew members of the vessel were arrested and they are in judicial custody at present. “Fully aware of the larger international linkages, especially with those of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan, we started probing every available thread in the case and soon it was found that two of the main conspirators in the case have been living in Chennai,” NCB Deputy Director (Operations) KPS Malhotra said on the recent arrests.

    He said that both Nawas and Afnas held “important positions” in the multi-national heroin syndicate. “They were controlling the mid-sea pick up and delivery of narcotic drugs from Pakistani and Iranian vessels. Both fled Sri Lanka when the authorities of that country closed in on them. It is also believed that there is an Interpol global arrest warrant against Nawas,” Malhotra said.

    Officials said heroin produced in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran is loaded in fishing vessels setting sail from the ports of Iran and Pakistan for a mid-sea transfer into similar vessels from Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

    Officials said that these transfers happen in or very near the territorial waters of India. “There is a big network of foreign entities controlling this lucrative trade. Intelligence developed by the NCB and Indian agencies over a period of time indicates that Pakistani drug traffickers lodged in Sri Lankan prisons for drug offences control this trade and they source and deliver large quantities of heroin from golden crescent countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran) to Sri Lankan and Maldivian entities,” a senior NCB officer said.

    He claimed that with an “increased vigil” by security forces along the country’s north-western land borders, the traditional route of Afghan-Pakistan heroin is becoming tougher to breach. “This has led to an increased use of the sea route by heroin traffickers to smuggle the drug into India,” the officer said.