Hummingbird News Desk
NEW DELHI, 25 APRIL: The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) on Monday arrested a man from a village in Punjab in connection with the recovery of heroin consignment weighing 205 kg and valued at Rs1,439 crore in the illicit international market.
Acting on a tip-off, the DRI officials and Gujarat ATS officials jointly conducted a raid near Kandla Port in Kutch where the content of consignment was lying. The consignment, which arrived at Kandla Port from Bander Abbas port, Iran, imported in 17 containers (10,318 bags), has gross weight of 394 MT and was declared as “gypsum powder”.
So far, 205.6 kg of heroin, valued at Rs. 1439 crores in illicit market, has been recovered. The detailed examination of the consignment is still undergoing at the port, a DRI official said.
DRI sources said that the importer of the goods Jobanjeet Singh, who runs Balaji Trading from Uttarakhand, was arrested from a village in Amritsar on Sunday after a manhunt launched across the country.
“DRI conducted searches at various locations across India to locate the importer. The importer was changing locations and hiding to evade identification. However, persistent and vigorous efforts yielded results and the importer was located in a small village in Punjab. The importer tried to resist and flee, but he was nabbed by the DRI officers,” DRI stated in a note.
On the basis of enquiry done so far, DRI has arrested the said importer under the provisions of NDPS Act, 1985 and he has been produced before the Court of Special Duty Magistrate, Amritsar on 24 April. The Court has granted transit remand to enable the DRI officers to produce the importer before the jurisdictional Court at Bhuj.
Sources said that so far 205 kg heroin has been recovered from only two containers and the quantity of the seizure is likely to increase exponentially after examination of 15 other containers. What is worrying the security agencies is the fact that consignment of such scale passed through the port undetected and remained lying at the private container freight station.
Tags: #DRI #HeroinConsignment #KandlaPort #Kutch #Punjab
