The Excise department may seek the intervention of a Central agency to probe the multiple seizures of premium drugs smuggled in from abroad, leading to three arrests from as many cities and registration of six different cases earlier this month.
Though the likelihood of handing over the case to the Excise Crime Branch (ECB) is also being considered, a senior official said that it was a more fitting case for roping in a Central agency since the help of agencies like Interpol will have to be sought as it involved the seizure of LSD stamps from the Netherlands and Qatar. The possibility of whether more such parcels of drugs have found their way through to the State from abroad will also have to be looked into.
The cases are now being investigated by excise teams in Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode. The move to handover the probe to ECB or even a Central agency is aimed at a more coordinated investigation covering all aspects, including the source of drugs and payment mode, which is suspected to have made in cryptocurrency through the Dark Web.
The chain of events started with the seizure of 31 LSD stamps in two parcels from the Netherlands and Qatar from the International Mail Centre of the postal department in Kochi. While the parcel from the Netherlands containing five LSD stamps was addressed to one Aditya, 23, from Thiruvananthapuram, the other parcel containing 26 LSD stamps from Qatar was meant for one K. Fazalu, 34, of Kozhikode. Both were arrested shortly thereafter.
This led to further seizures of 1.43 kg of hashish oil, 83 LSD stamps, 3.15 g cocaine, and 2.74 g of MDMA from the house of Fazalu. Excise officials also seized two parcels that Fazalu had tried to courier using two fake addresses through a firm at Mankavu in Kozhikode. One of the courier containing four MDMA pills weighing 2.14 g was bound for a recipient in Pune and the other containing 0.917 g methamphetamine was meant for one Govindaraj Kammath, who was since then arrested and released on bail, in Mattancherry.
Meanwhile, the Ernakulam Excise department is likely to get the custody of Aditya later this week. “We have seized his mobile phone for examination. We will also try to gather information about the origins of the drug and how he arranged it,” said an Excise official.
