KOCHI: The Cochin International Airport at Nedumbassery, a top choice of international passengers, is turning a major transit point for international cartels trafficking drugs from the country.
While enforcement agencies, tracking drug smuggling through airports, have always raised this concern, the seizure of 19kg of ephedrine from the airport the other day has indeed lent strength to their suspicion.
“Ample information is coming in on attempts by drug cartels to convert Kochi into one of their transit points. This is seen as part of attempts by smugglers, mainly those based out of Tamil Nadu, to diversify their operations to less monitored airports,” said officials of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence.
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While operations were earlier carried out with the help of carriers, smugglers changed track to cargo two years ago to avoid being caught. “Contraband is sent in the name of fictitious exporters to their agents abroad. To avoid being traced, they employ local people like an unsuspecting autorickshaw or a cargo van driver to take the consignment to the airport,” they explained.
Commenting on the issue, officials of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), which effected the ephedrine seizure at the airport, pointed to a rise in smuggling of drugs from south India to various South East Asian destinations. “It [ephedrine consignment] was just lying there as an unclaimed baggage, and the papers regarding the exporter were obviously fictitious. The origin of the contraband is believed to be a production unit in Chennai, though at which point connivance might have happened is yet to be traced,” said a senior NCB official.
According to officials, ephedrine is a controlled chemical substance used for genuine industrial purposes including the preparation of cough syrups. “The diversion of stocks could have happened at any point from the manufacturer to the distributor to the stockist. We have received some solid leads, and arrests may take place after ascertaining them,” he added.
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The official also pointed to the possibility of smugglers resorting to diversionary tactics in case of heightened monitoring at airports like Hyderabad, Chennai, or Bengaluru. “These last-minute changes indeed make such operations almost untraceable until and unless there is a specific tip-off,” he said.
Besides the seizure on Friday, the DRI had foiled an attempt to smuggle 55 kg of ephedrine through the airport two months ago. Similarly, Customs sleuths also seized around 14.5 kg of the substance from a South African national.