Cocaine worth over ₹500 crore seized near Mundra Port in Gujarat

A team of DRI officials searched and scanned a container, which had arrived a few days back from Dubai and housed at a Container Freight Station near the port in Mundra.

A general view of a container terminal is seen at Mundra Port in Gujarat. | Photo Credit: Reuters

In yet another instance of drug seizure, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) has seized 56 kg of cocaine, estimated to be worth over ₹500 crore, from a container near Mundra port in Gujarat’s Kutch district on Thursday.

Although the DRI officials did not disclose the value of the seized contraband it recovered from a container, it could be close to ₹550 crore as the price of 1 kg of cocaine is around ₹10 crore in international markets.

As per details, acting on specific inputs, a team of DRI officials searched and scanned a  container, which had arrived a few days back from Dubai and housed at a Container Freight Station near the port in Mundra, Kutch.

On scanning the container, the DRI team stumbled on a consignment of 56 kg of cocaine, a highly addictive drug, which was hidden inside imported items in the container. 

Last month, DRI in a joint operation with Gujarat’s Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) recovered approximately 260 kg of heroin worth ₹ 1,300 crore during search at a container station near Kandla port in Kutch district. 

The heroin contraband was found to have come in one of 17 containers, which had arrived at the Kandla port from Iran between September and October last year and the container in which the contraband was kept was lying in the freight station near the port.

Subsequently, the ATS and DRI recovered nearly 90 kg of heroin worth ₹450 crore from a shipping container that had arrived from Iran at another port at Pipavav in Saurashtra region. 

It may be noted that in September 2021, the DRI, in the single largest heroin haul in India to date, seized around 3,000 kg of the drug, believed to have originated from Afghanistan and worth about ₹ 21,000 crore in global markets, from two containers at the Mundra port. 

This case was handed over to NIA to probe the terror link with smuggling of high quality drugs into India from Afghanistan. The NIA is probing the case and several Afghan nationals have been arrested in connection with the drug contraband that was delivered at Mundra port.