DRI Mumbai’s Pan-India Operation Nets 100 Crore Cocaine Haul, Arrests Syndicate Members

Mumbai, 19th March 2024: In a major success to curb the drug menace in India, the DRI officers have knocked down an international drug smuggling syndicate operating and based in India.

DRI has seized 9.829 kgs of Cocaine having illicit market value of approximately 100 Crores and apprehended two female passengers of Indonesian and Thai nationality who had come from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with an aim of smuggling the said quantity of Cocaine into India.

Interrogation of the passengers and swift analysis of the case data vis-à-vis past records revealed that the said drugs were destined for drug smuggling and trafficking syndicate based in Delhi and nearby areas. One team of DRI officers stationed in Mumbai placed a surveillance and started monitoring syndicate activities while one team of DRI Mumbai officers was deployed and rushed to Delhi to apprehend the other key members of the syndicate.

In a swift action, MZU officers reached Delhi and they kept surveillance overnight and were successful in catching the prospective recipient of the seized substance (African National). Officers laid a trap in Greater Noida with the help of local officers and identified the mastermind. During the interception, the mastermind got violent and he sprinted by pushing the officers with his full might. DRI officers, in a dramatic chase, apprehended the said Nigerian mastermind and his associate. The officers as well as the accused got mildly injured during the chase.

Subsequently, both these members of the international drug smuggling syndicate along with the above-mentioned 02 passengers have been arrested by DRI, Mumbai under provisions of the NDPS Act, 1985.

In the said entire operation, a total 9.829 kgs of Cocaine having illicit market value of approximately 100 Crores has been seized by the DRI, Mumbai officers from the above-said ladies of foreign origin before the same could be delivered to said international drug smuggling syndicate based in India, having their expanse in Ethiopia, Sri Lanka and Nigeria.

It establishes that DRI as an intelligence agency is determined to curb the drug menace in India to protect and safeguard the social fabric; and that this agency not only acts as a barrier for incoming-outgoing of drugs at Indian boundaries but is also determined to decimate the entire syndicate operating this illegal cartel.