Cachar (Assam), Nov 13 (IANS) The Assam Rifles, in a joint operation with the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), have seized a huge consignment of highly addictive methamphetamine tablets worth more than Rs 60 crore and arrested a drug peddler in Assam, officials said on Friday.
A Defence spokesman said that the Assam Rifles, in coordination with the Silchar-based DRI, intercepted a vehicle carrying a massive consignment of methamphetamine tablets, valued at around Rs 60 crore, in the Borkhola area of southern Assam’s Cachar district.
The vehicle, which was travelling from neighbouring Mizoram into Assam, allegedly attempted to evade interception, prompting a pursuit by the joint team.
Following a chase, the security personnel successfully intercepted the vehicle, a dumper truck, and brought it to a halt.
A thorough search of the vehicle led to the recovery of the contraband, which had been concealed inside a specially constructed cabinet within the body of the dumper truck.
One individual travelling in the vehicle was also apprehended during the operation.
The arrested individual, along with the recovered contraband and the seized vehicle, was subsequently handed over to the DRI in Silchar for further investigation and legal proceedings.
Officials said that the seized drugs, commonly known as Yaba or party tablets, were smuggled from Myanmar and transported through Mizoram before being brought into southern Assam.
Mizoram and Manipur have emerged as major drug-trafficking corridors in the Northeast, largely due to their long and porous international borders with Myanmar and their geographical proximity to the Golden Triangle, one of the world’s major illicit narcotics-producing regions.
Six districts of Mizoram and five districts of Manipur share a combined 910-km-long international border with Myanmar, making the two Northeastern states particularly vulnerable to cross-border drug smuggling.
The Golden Triangle, comprising areas of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand, has long been identified as a major hub for the production and trafficking of illicit narcotics, including synthetic drugs.
The porous international borders, coupled with difficult geographical terrain, pose significant challenges for security agencies in preventing the movement of narcotics and dismantling cross-border drug-trafficking networks.
–IANS
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