Afghan nationals caught in Delhi with drugs worth Rs 1,200 cr
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New Delhi: The Delhi police special cell arrested two Afghan nationals with 312.5 kg methamphetamine and 10 kg high purity heroin worth Rs 1200 crores. It is one of the biggest drug seizures in the country's history.
The accused - Mustafa Stanikza (age 23 years) and Rahimullah Rahim (age 44 years) - have been living in India since 2016. They were arrested after the police received information on a huge consignment from a known drug lord operating from overseas.
Police received information that two Afghan nationals will be travelling in a Skoda Superb car carrying narcotics. The team carried out a quick and intense interrogation on the spot due to the size of the consignment.
Officers were also able to extract information on a vehicle that trailed the accused. "Various other chemicals and a glass container used for refining contraband were also subsequently recovered from the house of the accused."
Hargobinder Singh Dhaliwal, Special Commissioner of Police of Special cell, said that a team led by ACPs Lalit Mohan Negi and Hridaya Bhushan busted a transnational synthetic drug cartel with the arrest of two Afghan nationals. "With the arrests, the highest ever seizure of high-quality party drug Methamphetamine, totalling 312.5 Kgs have been made apart from 10 Kgs of Afghan-origin Heroin."
He added that a EU4Monitoring Drugs (EU4MD) project report in 2020 had highlighted that there was a growing realization among those involved in the Afghan drug trade that the ephedra plants growing wild in the central highlands of Afghanistan for hundreds of years were a potential source of ephedrine for methamphetamine manufacture.
The official further said the intelligence-based operations have been providing credible inputs over the past few years. "Meth was gradually replacing Heroin as the preferred financing option for terror operations."
An FIR was registered under the relevant sections of the UAPA Act to probe the emerging use of Meth as the fulcrum of evolving Narco-Terror matrix. Preliminary findings suggest that the drug syndicate has connections to an established terrorist network.