Afghan nationals arrested in Delhi for drug trafficking

Busting an international module of drug trafficking, NCB has arrested four Afghan nationals and seized around 380 gm of heroin from their possession. The accused have been sent to judicial custody and further investigation into the matter is underway.

New Delhi: The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on Saturday claimed to have busted an international module of drugs trafficking with the arrest of four Afghanistan nationals and seizure of about 380 gm of heroin.

The agency said that the contraband was seized from a parcel that arrived at a courier company in Delhi from Afghanistan on September 30 and contained a metal piston.

"Further investigation resulted in the arrest of four Afghan nationals who were staying as refugees in Delhi," NCB zonal director KPS Malhotra was quoted as saying in a statement.

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"They were doing the drug business in the disguise of language interpreters," he said.

The handler or the kingpin of the heroin trafficking racket is based in Afghanistan and has created a multi-layer of identities so that the person handing over the parcel did not know the identity of the next one, Malhotra said.

The four accused are now in judicial custody and further probe is on, the NCB officer said.

"Since lockdown (that was imposed in March to contain the spread of COVID-19), drug traffickers based in Afghanistan have taken a new route to traffic heroin through courier parcels."

"Earlier they used to send human couriers who swallowed heroin and transported it to India," he said.

PTI report

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