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India becomes bigger transit point
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05 March 2008
New Delhi, India
The use of courier services for drug trafficking seems to be on the rise in India and the country is increasingly being used as a major transit as well as destination country for smuggling of banned substances, according to the annual report of the International Narcotics Control Board report.
The report, which was released on Wednesday also said that the Indian law enforcement agencies are seizing an ever-increasing quantity of heroin from the Indo-Pak border, indicating a rise in trafficking of contraband from its neighbouring nations through the country, a report said. In 2007, drug traffickers used Bangladeshi and Indian courier services to ship illicit drugs to Canada and South Africa, according to the annual report.
Providing instances, the report said in July 2007, the Narcotics Control Bureau of India stopped two parcels containing more than one kg of heroin in a courier office in Delhi. While one parcel was destined for Canada, the other was meant for South Africa.
Similarly, in February, 2007, a parcel containing 550 kg of ephedrine was seized in a Bangladeshi company providing courier services and the parcel was destined for Canada.
According to the report, West African traffickers have targeted countries in South Asia, mainly India, for cocaine trafficking.
South American cocaine is trafficked to India in small quantities where it is exchanged for South-West Asian heroin bound for Europe or North America. "India is increasingly being used as a major transit country and also as a destination country for drug trafficking," it said.
The report noted that cross-border smuggling is relatively easy due to the porous borders between Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal. According to the report the quantity of heroin entering India from Pakistan and Afghanistan has increased in the year 2007 than the previous years.
"Law enforcement agencies in the north-western part of India are seizing ever-increasing quantities of heroin originating in Afghanistan and Pakistan and en route to Europe via Pakistan and India," it said.
There has been increasing reports of Indian heroin becoming available in Bangladesh, it said, noting that there is evidence that Europe-bound heroin are increasingly passing through the country.
Heroin is trafficked to Bangladesh through various means - by courier, by commercial vehicles or train along the route leading from India and by sea via Bay of Bengal or overland by truck or public transport along a route leading from Burma to Bangladesh, the report said.
The Vienna-based board said the use of courier services for drug trafficking seems to be on the rise in India.
A major area of concern is the smuggling of illicitly manufactured pharmaceutical preparations, such as codeine based syrups, benxodiazepines and buprenorphine from India into neighbouring countries such as Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Sri Lanka.
The report says that the internationally-controlled pharmaceutical preparations manufactured locally in India are increasingly being diverted to some European countries and the United States. Each years, the United States Customs and Boarder Protections intercepts in the mail system thousands of illegal parcels containing pharmaceutical preparations and marked "for personal use". Most of these pharmaceutical preparations appear to have been sold illegally over the Internet.
Meanwhile, the Narcotics Control Board (NCB) said there was no evidence to suggest that Maoists are involved in illegal drug business. "There is absolutely no report to corroborate (the allegation). We have some anecdotal reports, media reports about it, but nothing concrete," NCB director-general K.C. Verma said.
Mr Verma, who was speaking to reporters after releasing the annual report of International Narcotics Control Board, said he had visited Jharkhand after such reports but could not find any evidence for such allegations.
"I have toured the state along with senior officials after reports that Maoists were involved in drug trafficking. But we did not find any conclusive evidence," he said.
