NCB makes `largest-ever` LSD seizure, drugs trafficking network busted
The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on Tuesday said it has seized the “biggest” single operation of nearly 15,000 LSD blots in the country with the arrest of six people as it busted an international drug trafficking network operating on the darknet. .
According to the authorities, the seizure is estimated to be worth more than Rs 10 crore (around Rs 5K-7K per patch) in the international market and the six persons detained late last month are students and youths. are wanted to make “easy money” by remaining anonymous within the deeper layers of secret internet-based apps and messenger services like WICKR.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah congratulated the federal anti-narcotics agency on the achievement, saying it shows great synergy between cyber vigilance and human intelligence and is in line with it. Prime Minister Narendra ModiVision of Drug Free India
LSD or lysergic acid diethylamide is a synthetic chemical-based drug and is classified as a hallucinogen. It is smuggled by painting on spots half the size of stamp paper, and eaten by licking or swallowing.
“This is the “biggest ever” seizure of LSD blots in the country in a single operation,” NCB Deputy Director General (Northern Region) Gyaneshwar said. Six youths have been arrested so far and we have arrested another such cartel. Yes on the mark of .Singh told reporters here.
Officials said that the age of the arrested persons is between 25 to 28 years.
Shah said the breakthrough was the result of “great coordination between cyber vigilance and human intelligence … as darknet and cryptocurrencies were used to trade these narcotics”.
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“Due to heightened vigilance and better coordination, the export of narcotics in India has grown exponentially in the last few years,” the home minister said on Twitter.
Singh said that a total of 14,961 patches were seized as part of the nearly two-week operation and that the patches are of the “Gamagoblin and Asura’s Holy Spirit” brand.
The deputy DG added that so far, Karnataka Police had seized the most 5,000 blots of LSD during the entire period of 2021 and Kolkata NCB had seized almost the same number of blots in a single operation in 2022.
Singh said that LSD abuse is rampant among the youth and can lead to serious health problems.
According to officials, LSD is known as ‘acid’ in the parlance of illegal drugs and is odorless, colorless and tasteless and causes the user to lose a sense of space, distance and time, affecting their judgment and behaviour. is badly affected.
Possession of 0.1 gram of LSD (about six blots), which is a commercial quantity of the hallucinogenic drug, invites severe legal action under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, leading to denial of bail and rigorous imprisonment. may be punished. A person who trades or consumes it, an NCB official said.
NCB Deputy DG Singh said the latest seizure of around 15,000 LSD blots is 2,500 times the commercial quantity.
He said the LSD seized by them was sourced from Poland and the Netherlands and the syndicate was smuggling it to different states by taking payment through cryptocurrency and UPI, and the smuggling was sent through courier and postal networks.
NCB is also trying to freeze crypto funds, officials said.
“The suppliers and consumers we intercepted had no private interactions and every contact was on the darknet,” Singh said.
He said the action was taken after a special team of the agency’s Delhi zonal unit “patrolled” in the dark for several hours.
Darknet refers to a deeply hidden Internet platform that uses onion router (TOR) secret lanes to conduct drug sales, exchange of obscene content, and other illegal activities to avoid monitoring by law enforcement agencies. is used for
Besides the LSD blots, 2.32 kg of ganja and cash worth Rs 4.65 lakh have been seized while bank deposits of Rs 20 lakh have been frozen, the Deputy DG said.
NCB Zonal Director (Delhi) Gyanendra Kumar Singh said that the arrested people are mostly educated and young.
“One is a student who is from Goa but enrolled in a private university in Noida, another is a boy from Delhi who was trying to send some of these stains to Kashmir and a girl who was arrested from NCR,” the zonal director said. has gone,” said the zonal director. .
He said that a supplier based in Jaipur and a person from Kerala have also been arrested.
A similar darknet-based drug trafficking racket was busted by the agency in 2021 in which 40 people were arrested.
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