CHENNAI: The pandemic may have stopped international flights from arriving at Chennai airport, but there seems no let up in drugs being smuggled into the city through parcels. Rajan Chaudhary, Chennai Air Customs (CAC) Commissioner, told Express on Thursday that a parcel containing narcotics from The Netherlands was seized by Air Customs at the foreign post office.
“This is the fourth time we have foiled smuggling of narcotics using parcel service,” said Chaudhary. “After international alerts, we have been scanning all parcels,” he said. He said the parcel contained 100 pills of MDMA (also known as ecstasy) worth Rs 3 lakh. These hexagonal pills commonly known as ‘Red Buli’ have a ‘bull’ stamp on one side and contain around 250 mg of MDMA, which is a very high dose. In February, a man died and a woman got seriously ill after taking this pill in Warwickshire, England, said Chaudhary.
The parcel was destined to a residential locality in Ambattur. On reaching the locality, it was found that the address was incomplete and inquiries revealed that no person with the consignee name lived there. Efforts are being made to apprehend the accused.
Earlier, CAC seized a parcel from the United Kingdom addressed to a person in Thiruvallur containing ecstasy pills. The parcel contained 270 pills valued at `8 Lakh.While rave parties may not be happening during the lockdown, addicts book parcels online through Dark Web, which forms a small part of the deep web not indexed by web search engines.
Other instances