Has Bengaluru become a “landing point” for drugs like cocaine from established drug cartels in South America to enter India? This seems to be the key focus of an ongoing probe by the Narcotics Control Bureau. The “suspicion of such direct connect is strong” said NCB sources who pointed to two cases of cocaine smuggling directly to the city from Brazil. Till now, authorities believed that drugs were routed from South America through other countries and cities to Bengaluru, but they are “worried” about the city becoming a landing point or point of entry for drugs into India from South America.
The year 2015 has seen a rapid rise in the number of seizures of smuggled cocaine into the city from 0.122 kg in 2014 to a staggering 3.527 kg this year alone till date. The latest being the biggest bust of cocaine in Bengaluru with the arrest of a Paraguayan national carrying cocaine from Sao Paulo via Dubai through the Kempegowda International Airport on August 18. He was apprehended after he disembarked from an Emirates flight.
Earlier case of cocaine seizure was in June 8 when a Filipino national who was intercepted at the airport. He was smuggling the contraband into the city as per instructions of a fellow-Filipino, a female beautician, who was arrested and later granted bail after she claimed she was a ‘spy’ working to expose the drug network. But NCB has maintained she was an active cocaine dealer in the city with links to local Nigerian gangs dealing with psychotropic substances, mainly LSD and MDMA.
The Paraguayan was taken into custody and is believed to have revealed his Bengaluru connect on whose direction he took the long route from Sao Paulo to the garden city with cocaine worth nearly Rs. 20 crore. However, NCB sources refrained from divulging further details on the city connect to South America which is being probed.
The investigating agency is also probing city-based drug gangs, including African nationals, peddling substances like cocaine, LSD and cannabis. Some suspects were constantly in contact with the Filipino woman and their links to Latin America is also under scrutiny, sources added.
