DRI nets 740 kg cannabis in eight pan-India raids, 13 held
In eight intelligence-driven operations carried out over the past two weeks, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) has seized almost 740 kg of cannabis and charas, arresting 13 people under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985. According to the Finance Ministry on Wednesday, the amount seized includes 709.6 kg of ganja, 24.5 kg of high-grade hydroponic cannabis and 5 kg of charas.
The operations focused on consignments being transported by road, rail and air, highlighting the fact that traffickers still use several routes to move large quantities of narcotics.
The biggest seizure occurred on Tuesday when DRI officers, acting on certain inputs, stopped two trucks coming from Visakhapatnam on the Old Dhamtari Road near Raipur. When they searched the loading areas, they found 61 packets concealed within 10 sacks; field tests proved that the contents were cannabis. The officers seized 375.95 kg of the drug together with both vehicles and arrested four people.
The Raipur route had already been the subject of a previous operation. On August 26, DRI teams halted a further truck close to the city and obtained approximately 124 kg of cannabis that had been hidden. Police arrested one person and seized the vehicle. Resistance was shown during a third highway raid. From September 5 to 6, officers pursued and stopped a truck on the Aurangabad–Patna Highway outside Patna. The people in the truck attacked the team, wounding one officer, while the driver escaped. During the search, officers found a hidden compartment containing 90 packets of ganja weighing 140.5 kg. The truck was seized. Railways were also used. On September 3, DRI officers stopped three passengers in the general compartment of the Amarnath Express at Gorakhpur railway station. During a personal search, they found about 5 kg of charas hidden in knee-cap-shaped coverings wrapped around the thighs of two passengers and placed inside their sarees. Investigators said the consignment had been smuggled from Nepal.
The high-quality cargo was transported via international air routes. In three separate missions over the past 15 days, DRI units stopped three passengers who had arrived from Hanoi and Bangkok at Hyderabad and Bengaluru airports. Together, they had approximately 24.6 kg of high-grade hydroponic cannabis.
These eight operations show the range of methods being used to conceal the drugs: using sacks stacked in the truck cargo areas, employing specially constructed cavities, hiding the drugs on trains by means of body concealment, and carrying them in passenger luggage on international flights. Since commercial quantities of the drug carry severe penalties under the NDPS Act, further investigations into the suppliers, financiers, and intended destinations are ongoing.
The officials said the results achieved over the fortnight are evidence of a continuous and intelligence-based operation aimed at combating organised cannabis trafficking networks that operate across state and international borders. The drugs seized, the vehicles, and the people arrested have all been handled in accordance with the NDPS Act, 1985.
