Successive seizures of drugs smuggled in from abroad have stretched the Excise department as they are finding it tough to take the investigation beyond a point. In five separate incidents in less than as many months, excise officials have seized 291 LSD stamps, 3,115.8 g of MDMA, and 9881.9 g of cocaine delivered from destinations as diverse as the Netherlands, Poland, U.S., and Qatar.
While the department was able to nab the recipients in all the cases, they could not track down the originating points abroad. Though the Excise had demanded soon after the first seizure in March that Central agencies, including the Narcotics Control Bureau, take over the probe for liaising with international agencies, such as the Interpol, because of the foreign links, it hasn’t evoked any response.
“Due to our independent existence, unlike as a subordinate agency of the police elsewhere in the country, the Excise has to work within severe constraints. For instance, we cannot track the live location of an accused on the run with the help of mobile network providers, as the police do, since we are not on the list of agencies approved by TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) to do so,” a senior excise official said.
Via cryptocurrency
Besides, in all the five cases, the orders were placed over the Dark Web and payments made through cryptocurrency. Excise sources admit that the agency hardly has the expertise or technical wherewithal to crack such cases. “While we have a technical wing, there is no regular updating or training,” an officer said.
Out of the five cases, in four, the drugs were intercepted at the International Mail Centre (IMC), a facility run by the postal department with the help of Customs officials and through which all parcels from abroad are routed. The latest seizure last month was made from a parcel received at the postal appraisal office of the Customs.
The haul
In the first seizure in March, 31 LSD stamps were seized from two separate parcels from the Netherlands and Qatar. In the second incident, 9881.9 mg cocaine and 2896.8 mg MDMA were seized from parcels from the Netherlands. This was followed by the seizure of 207 g of MDMA and 60 LSD stamps packed into 15 different parcels from the Netherlands in May and 12 g of MDMA from the United States and 200 LSD stamps from Poland in June.
