No fewer than 106 Nigerians were among 660 foreign nationals arrested for drug trafficking in India last year.
According to The Indian Express report, Nepalese nationals topped the list with 203 arrests, followed by Nigerians (106) and Myanmarese (25), the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) revealed in its annual report.
The data also showed arrests of 18 Bangladeshis, 14 Ivorians, 13 Ghanaians, and 10 Icelanders for drug-related offences.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah released the report during the 2nd National Conference of Heads of Anti-Narcotics Task Forces of various states and Union Territories. The two-day conference, organised by the NCB, began on Tuesday.
According to the report, 163 cases of drug trafficking through drones were reported in Punjab, and 187.149 kg of heroin, 5.39 kg of methamphetamine, and 4.22 kg of opium were seized from different sectors.
In Rajasthan, 15 cases of drone use were reported, and 39.155 kg of heroin was recovered, while in Jammu and Kashmir, one case was reported, leading to the recovery of 0.344 kg of heroin.
“India faces a growing challenge in combating narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances trafficking due to its geographic location between the Death Crescent (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran) and the Death Triangle (Myanmar, Thailand, Laos) – two major global drug-producing regions,” Director General (NCB) Anurag Garg said in the annual report.
“While the states of Punjab, Rajasthan, and Jammu & Kashmir are vulnerable to heroin smuggling from Pakistan, the north-eastern states, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh- are affected by proximity to Myanmar. Coastal routes; Mumbai, Gujarat, Kerala, Tamil Nadu- are now increasingly being exploited for the smuggling of synthetic drugs and precursors,” Garg added.
Addressing the conference, Home Minister Shah said the time had come to bring those who run the drug trade in India while residing abroad within the ambit of the law, stressing that the Narendra Modi government is determined to wipe out all kinds of narcotics from the country.
“The CBI has done very good work on this. I appeal to all heads of ANTF that, with the help of the CBI, they should make arrangements for the extradition of fugitives. This will not only help in breaking the narcotics gangs but also the terrorism gangs. Action is also being taken against those involved in the retail trade of drugs,” he said.
Shah said the battle is no longer about catching small-scale drug peddlers but about targeting three types of cartels: those operating at entry points, those distributing from entry points to states, and those selling narcotics in smaller areas within states.
“Now, every state has to develop a high-level strategy targeting all three types of cartels. There is a need to adopt technologies such as darknet analysis, cryptocurrency tracking, communication pattern analysis, logistics, financial flow analysis, metadata analysis, and machine learning models to curb these cartels,” he said.
According to Shah, in some parts of the world, people have seen the link between a nation’s development and the challenges of drug abuse. “Unfortunately, two of the regions from where drugs are supplied globally are very close to us. So this is the time that we fight against it strongly,” he said.
