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The people’s newsroom

PolicyCustoms

Customs find 148 kg of hydroponic weed hidden in tube spools from Bangkok at Delhi airport

The consignment was declared as PU tubes. Officers at the IGI air cargo complex broke open 120 spools to find the cannabis, valued at about ₹52 crore.

From the editorial desk · New DelhiPublished
Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi
Indira Gandhi International Airport, DelhiPhoto: Wasiul Bahar / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Key points

  1. Customs officers seized 148.67 kg of hydroponic weed from a Bangkok consignment at IGI Airport's cargo complex.
  2. The haul is valued at about ₹52 crore, and at ₹150 crore on the street.
  3. One person was arrested on Thursday and searches were carried out in three states.

Customs officers at the air cargo complex of Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport have seized 148.67 kg of hydroponic weed that arrived from Bangkok hidden inside spools of plastic tubing, the finance ministry said on Thursday.

The consignment, 19 cartons declared as PU tubes, was held back by officers of the Special Intelligence and Investigation Branch on suspicion that it had been mis-declared. When it was examined in front of the importer’s representative, the cartons held plastic spools carrying the tubes. Breaking the spools open, officers found hidden cavities packed with compressed green material wrapped in polythene. Such packets turned up in 15 of the 19 cartons.

Preliminary tests indicated the substance was ganja. In all, 120 spools were used to hide the drugs. The ministry put the value of the seizure at about ₹52 crore, and its street value in India at an estimated ₹150 crore.

The drugs and the packing material were seized under the NDPS Act. The operation ran for more than 72 hours and ended with the arrest of one person on Thursday, who was produced before a magistrate the same day. Follow-up searches at five premises in three states had produced leads, the ministry said, and the investigation is continuing.

The ministry called it one of the biggest attempts to smuggle narcotics that customs had foiled. It did not name the importer or the person arrested.

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