Police on Saturday claimed to have busted a Pakistan-linked narcotics racket with the arrest of two peddlers here with three kilograms of heroin, valued at around Rs 15 crore.
Drugs worth more than Rs 5,300 crore were seized and 102 people involved in illicit narcotics trade apprehended by the Gujarat police in the last one-and-a-half years, the state legislative assembly was informed on Tuesday.
Punjab police have arrested an Indian-origin transnational drug lord, wanted by the FBI in connection with one of the largest narcotics seizures in the US. Shehnaz Singh, also known as Shawn Bhinder, had been operating under the guise of a transportation business in Canada since 2014 and allegedly facilitated the movement of drugs from Colombia to the US and Canada via Mexico. Bhinder was arrested in Ludhiana, Punjab, after he had managed to give a slip to FBI sleuths and clandestinely landed in India. He was wanted by the FBI in connection with a seizure of 391 kg methamphetamine, 109 kg cocaine, four sophisticated weapons, and vehicles from six of his associates on February 26, 2025.
The seizure, as per officials, is estimated to be worth over Rs 10 crore in the international market (about Rs 5K-7K per blot) and all the six who have been taken into custody, beginning late last month, are students and youngsters who wanted to make 'easy money' by remaining anonymous within the deep layers of secret internet-based apps and messenger service like WICKR.
A court in Kochi granted the Narcotics Control Bureau 14-day custody of the Pakistani national arrested in connection with the seizure of over 2,500 kg of methamphetamine from a vessel in Indian waters off the port city.
The drugs seized include 3,089 kilograms of charas, 158 kg of Methamphetamine and 25 kg of morphine.
In a joint operation, the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad and the Indian Coast Guard have seized over 300 kg of drugs worth Rs 1,800 crore which were dumped into the Arabian Sea by Pakistani smugglers who fled across the international maritime boundary on being chased, officials said on Monday.
With this, a total of 42 individuals and seven firms have so far been chargesheeted in the case which was initially registered by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Gandhidham unit, Gujarat, on September 13, 2021.
An alleged synthetic narcotics producer, Kubbawala Mustafa, wanted on an Interpol Red Notice, was deported to India from the UAE in an operation coordinated by the CBI and Mumbai police.
A joint operation by anti-narcotics agencies led to the seizure of about 700 kg of drugs and the arrest of eight Iranian nationals from Indian territorial waters off the Gujarat coast around Porbandar on Friday.
It said that increased focus on expenditure monitoring was the reason being the seizures, which included freebies such as sarees, 'food kits', pressure cookers and kitchen appliances.
The Interpol has issued its first Silver notice, at India's request, to track the global assets of former French Embassy officer Shubham Shokeen, who is wanted in connection with a visa fraud. The Silver notice, introduced in January this year, aims to track illicit assets across the globe. India is among 51 countries participating in the pilot project for the Silver notice, which will continue until November. The Interpol has issued two Silver notices on the CBI's request - one against Shokeen for allegedly facilitating Schengen visas for illegal gratification and another against Amit Madanlal Lakhanpal, who is wanted by the Enforcement Directorate for allegedly creating a cryptocurrency without permission and defrauding investors.
The CBI has significantly increased the rate of fugitive repatriation, bringing back 134 individuals in the last five years, doubling the number from the previous decade. This success is attributed to enhanced diplomatic efforts, technological advancements, and improved coordination with Interpol.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday took over the probe into the seizure of 2,988 kg narcotic at the Mundra port in Gujarat, an official said.
'This is the first case in which we saw use of Starlink by smugglers.'
The magistrate court has remanded the accused Pakistani national Subair, who was arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau to 14 days of judicial custody.
A metropolitan magistrate in Mumbai on Friday denied bail to Aryan Khan, son of Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan, and two others in a case pertaining to the alleged seizure of banned drugs from a cruise ship off the Mumbai coast.
The NCB has widened its probe into a recent seizure of about 50 kg of heroin from a house in south Delhi's Shaheen Bagh area with the arrest of three more people on Friday, officials said.
Seizures were made to stop any inducement of voters in Maharashtra, where polling will take place on November 20.
There has been an "exponential" rise in the seizure of drugs in India in the last five years with the darknet and the maritime route emerging as the most preferred modes of trafficking, NCB director general S N Pradhan said on Tuesday.
The Narcotics Control Bureau has seized about 50 kg of 'high-quality' heroin and arrested a man after it conducted raids in the Shaheen Bagh area of Delhi's Jamia Nagar, the federal anti-narcotics agency said on Thursday, claiming to have busted an Indo-Afghan drug-smuggling racket.
Gujarat tops the chart with total seizure worth over Rs 510 crores, followed by Tamil Nadu at Rs 270.15 crores, Andhra Pradesh over Rs158 crores, Punjab Rs 155.91 crores and Uttar Pradesh Rs 142.31 crores.
A total of 149 kgs of mephedrone or 'meow meow' drug (both in powder and liquid form), 50 kg ephedrine, and 200 litres of acetone was recovered from the three labs located in Bhinmal of Jalore district and Osian in Jodhpur district of Rajasthan and Gandhinagar in Gujarat, the officer said.
The poll-panel called these seizures by its various field and technical enforcement teams a "historic milestone" achieved "for the first time in any assembly electoral process", meaning during simultaneously-held assembly polls.
Over Rs 313 crore in cash has been seized by Election Commission since the announcement of the 16th general elections with Andhra Pradesh topping the list in cash and liquor interceptions during this period.
According to officials, this year there has been a three-fold increase in the total seizure, which was Rs 322 crore in 2021, Rs 347 crore in 2022 and Rs 1,021 crore so far in 2023.
The raids were conducted by the Gujarat Anti Terrorist Squad and Narcotics Control Bureau jointly on Friday after the ATS received a tip-off that Ahmedabad resident Manoharlal Enani and Kuldeepsinh Rajpurohit of Rajasthan had set up mephedrone manufacturing units, the official said on Saturday.
He had taken charge as the 25th director general of the Indian Coast Guard on July 19 last year.
The police have so far seized approximately 1,700 kg of mephedrone from Pune and a couple of locations in Delhi.
The request is under "active consideration" of the Union home ministry, he said.
Search of two premises of a firm called Apex Medichem Private Limited on Saturday led to the seizures, he said.
Based on information received from those arrested, a raid was conducted at Delhi's Kotla Mubarakpur on Tuesday, a police officer said.
The ICG and Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad apprehended the fishing boat in a joint operation in the high seas on Sunday afternoon, the coast guard said in a release in Ahmedabad.
Based on the estimate, a courier bringing in 1 kg of gold currently worth around $40,000 at world prices could earn $470 if not caught.
The arrests have been made by officials of Sector 126 police station as part of a crackdown on narcotics ordered by police commissioner Laxmi Singh, deputy commissioner of police (Noida) Harish Chander said.
The drug network was busted based on an intelligence input received by the Crime Branch, he said, adding that three persons were arrested and a case has been registered by the DRI.
The Narcotics Control Bureau on Tuesday claimed to have busted the "biggest" darknet-based LSD cartel operating in India with the seizure of more than 13,000 blots and Rs 26 lakh in cash and the arrest of three persons.
After tracking the movement at about 1.30 am, the spokesperson said an Army ambush, on challenging them, was fired upon and in the retaliatory firefight some terrorists have been hit.
The rise in illegal imports of the yellow metal has caught the eye of the finance ministry.
The Customs department suspects that the contraband, which originated from Afghanistan and Pakistan, had either fallen or was dumped by foreign vessels for the purpose of smuggling, he said.
