Indian Coast Guard undertakes dramatic mid-sea drug bust, recovers narcotics worth ₹1,526 crore

Over 200 kgs of heroin worth ₹1,526 crore was recovered by the Officers of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) and Indian Coast Guard (ICG) on Friday in an unusual mid-sea drug bust off the coast of Lakshadweep Islands.

A thrilling video shared by news agency ANI shows coast guards chasing down two boats 'Prince' and 'Little Jesus' amidst very rough seas. The boats were spotted after several days of continuous search and monitoring under a joint operation code-named “Operation Khojbeen.” Both boats were intercepted by officers of ICG and DRI.

Operation “Khojbeen” was launched after DRI officials gathered intel that said two Indian boats would be sailing from the coast of Tamil Nadu and would receive narcotics in huge quantities somewhere in the Arabian sea during the second/third week of May 2022.

"Thorough search of both the boats was carried out at the Coast Guard District Headquarters at Kochi, which resulted in heroin recovery of 218 packets of 1 kg each. Seized drug appears to be of high-grade heroin and its value in the international illicit market is estimated to be around ₹1,526 crore," a ministry statement said as per news agency PTI.

This is the fourth major drug bust by DRI in the past month. Earlier, DRI recovered 205.6 kg of heroin from a commercial import consignment of gypsum powder at the Kandla port on April 20, 2022, 396 kg of thread (laced with heroin) at Pipavav port on April 29, 2022, and 62 kg of heroin at Air Cargo Complex, IGI New Delhi on May 10, 20222, totally valued at approximately Rs. 2500 crores in the international illicit market.