More Smugglers Take Post Office Route To Ship Drugs From Abroad

Bengaluru, 20 Aug 2020:

A unit of Bangalore Customs recently seized a parcel containing psychotropic drugs like ecstasy, MMDA and brown sugar that reached Chamarajpet Foreign Post Office from the Netherlands. Investigation led to the arrest of a city youth who had allegedly ordered the drugs through the dark web.

With various enforcement agencies like police, Customs and Narcotics Control Bureau tightening their grip on drug smuggling, many dealers are using the postal service to transport them from overseas.

Customs sources revealed smugglers are increasingly bringing psychedelic drugs into Bengaluru through foreign post as there’s a spurt in the number of unregistered parcels without proper delivery address. “The parcel which reached Chamarajpet contained nearly 100 ecstasy pills and blocks of MDMA and brown sugar in a semi-powdered form. The suspect was to receive it as soon as it arrived from Europe,” explained an investigating officer.

Following the seizure, the Customs team tracked down the man who had ordered the drugs. However, sleuths didn’t divulge his identity or the value of drugs seized. They are trying to ascertain his local links and the source of the drug cache.

Smuggling drugs from the US and Europe via foreign post has emerged as a trend in different cities over the past few years, with Bengaluru being a key location on the drug map. Last December, a Central Crime Branch (CCB) team had busted a drug smuggling racket, whose gang members had revealed they were in cahoots with some India Post employees working at the Chamarajpet Foreign Post Office.

“Four postal staffers were arrested, including two mail sorters who had cleared drug parcels with fake registered details without scanning and address verification. They were hand in glove with the local cartel, which paid them handsomely. The quartet even stole drugs from the parcels and sold them to other dealers. They door delivered the drugs to local peddlers before being nabbed,” said a CCB officer who was part of the probe.

On June 24 this year, a quality analyst with an e-commerce major in Bengaluru was arrested by a Chennai Customs team in Koramangala after a parcel containing 100 ecstasy pills from Frankfurt, Germany reached the Foreign Post Office in Chennai. A probe led investigators to the young executive, a Malaysian passport holder, who was known to have ordered the drugs through the dark web to be shipped in through the postal service.

Earlier, a man from Mysuru was nabbed and booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act for receiving drugs through the Foreign Post Office, sources added.

Trafficking trend

Dealers order drugs, mainly psychotropic, through the dark web

Consignment arrives at foreign post office

Parcel often unregistered, with no proper delivery address. The Times Of India