July 15, 2021- 12:08 p.m.
The drug racket is believed to be controlled from Afghanistan, from where it is sold to dealers based in Portugal, who then use sea routes — usually via Iran — to smuggle the narcotics into India, sources in the Delhi Police told ThePrint. Once the contraband reaches India, the sources said, a large network of peddlers markets the drug in various states.
The kingpin of a drug cartel peddling high-quality heroin across India — an operation worth thousands of crores of rupees — is believed to be based in Afghanistan and could possibly be backed by the Taliban, ThePrint has learnt.
On Saturday, the Special Cell of the Delhi Police seized its largest ever haul of the drug — 354 kg of Afghan heroin worth more than Rs 2,500 crore — from a house in Faridabad. Four persons, including an Afghan national, have been arrested in the case so far.
Police investigations revealed that the heroin would be concealed in legitimate exports — talc stone, gypsum powder, basil seeds and in other packaging materials like gunny bags, cartons — and then smuggled through Iran’s Chabahar port into Mumbai via the Jawaharlal Nehru port. From here, the consignments were being transported to Shivpuri in Madhya Pradesh where the drugs were being extracted and processed before being peddled, the police sources said.
