After security agencies intercepted three tonnes of heroin valued at $2.7 billion in the international market, more information has been released by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI).
Two persons were arrested while further search is taking place across India.
As per the latest information, authorities suspect the involvement of an Afghan national, whose whereabouts are currently unknown but the security agencies are hot on this trail.
When the ship was boarded after receiving “specific intelligence”, they discovered that the contraband was mixed with talc stone powder and the drugs were being shipped from Bandar Abbas Port in Iran via two containers, weighing 40 tonnes.
“Specific intelligence was developed that a consignment imported by M/s Aashi Trading Company, Vijayawada, declared as semi-processed Talc stones originating shipped from Bandar Abbas Port to Mundra Port is suspected to contain narcotics drugs. Intelligence indicated that these drugs have originated from Afghanistan,” the officers said in a statement.
The DRI official informed that in 1999.579 kg that was recovered from the first container and 988.64 kg from the second container, totalling 2988.219 kg of heroin.
“The examination was conducted in presence of experts from Forensics Science Lab (FSL), Gandhinagar. During the examination, suspected narcotics drugs were recovered from both the containers. The FSL conducted tests and confirmed the presence of heroin,” it added.
Now intelligence officers are conducting searches in Ahmedabad, Delhi, Chennai, Gandhidham and Mandvi in Gujarat and the focus is on Afghanistan, from where the seized heroin originated.
Afghanistan is the world’s biggest producer of heroin from the poppy crops harvested by farmers which is later turned into raw opium and its derivative heroin. The sale of this drug world over and the monies received from the sale have been key to the Taliban fund its insurgency against the Western forces.
As per data shared by United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the area covered under poppy cultivation expanded from 8,000 hectares in 2001 to 224,000 hectares in 2020.
The gum harvested from poppies which are then processed into heroin is shipped to Central Asia, Europe and the United States and India where the demand remains high and the UNODC report states, the opium economy in Afghanistan is estimated at $1.2 billion to $2.1 billion annually, which is 6 to 11 per cent of the Afghan Gross Domestic Production (GDP).
Though drugs are forbidden in Islam and are deemed as ‘Haraam’, the Taliban never really stopped harvesting, processing and selling them in the international market with the support of Pakistan and a US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan (SIGAR) report states, the Islamic terror group derives up to 60 per cent of its annual revenue from the illegal narcotics trade,
A BBC investigation revealed that the Taliban’s annual income surged to $400 million from 2011 onwards and by 2018 it was at $1.5 billion.
After the take over of Afghanistan by the Taliban, it said that the state will not allow the production of narcotics drugs. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said, “We are assuring our countrymen and women and the international community, we will not have any narcotics produced. From now on, nobody’s going to get involved (in the heroin trade), nobody can be involved in drug smuggling,”.
However, the seizure of drugs worth over 2.7 billion dollars is a far cry from the promise made by the Taliban because as of now, no country has given them aid and the US has frozen its assets which is over 10 billion dollars. So it simply cannot give up on the drug trade.
Also, the Taliban is a lose conglomerate of warlords and those who depend on the drug trade cannot be convinced to stop.
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