Pak-Afghan men under scanner in big drug haul

Mumbai: Around two months after the Coast Guard seized 1,500kg of heroin worth Rs 3,500 crore off the Gujarat coast from a merchant vessel, with the consignment’s source and end-user still untracked, a Pak-Afghan narcotics supply network has come under the probe’s scanner for its suspected role. 

A key operator of the network, Muhammad Hafeez alias Sultan, was recently nabbed by a US drug enforcement authority. According to sources, Sultan’s network is under the scanner because of its capability to supply large quantity of heroin and its alleged link to the seizure of 18 tonnes of Ephedrine, a precursor chemical used for making the banned narcotic methamphetamine, from a pharmaceutical firm in Solapur in April last year. Sultan’s network allegedly sources heroin from Afghanistan then sends it to lucrative markets in US and Europe via sea routes. The heroin seized off Gujarat coast in July is suspected to have been loaded off Gwadar port, Pakistan, though the supplier’s identity is not unknown yet. The vessel had been then taken to the UAE for concealing the contraband inside specially-made cavities, said the source. The Narcotics Control Bureau has so far arrested thirteen persons in the case, including eight crew members of the ship, who have however not been able to reveal details about who had supplied the heroin, said the source. According to the source, the probe may seek the help of US authorities to verify the suspected role of Sultan’s network.

A US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) probe against a Kenyan narcotics syndicate in 2014 had revealed the role of Sultan’s network in supplying narcotics on a global basis, said the source. “The DEA had arrested in Kenya four narco-traffickers in a sting operation wherein they were caught trying to smuggle 99kg of heroin into US supplied by Sultan’s network via sea,” said the source.