For centuries, Delhi has been a vibrant trading centre. From grains and textiles to machinery, consumer goods and precious metals, the national capital and its surrounding towns have served as an important marketplace connecting producers, traders and consumers across the country.
However, two disturbing developments last week raise a question if the region was acquiring a new and sinister identity of being a transit point for weapons and a manufacturing base for international drug syndicates.
The first alarm came from Rabupura in Greater Noida, where the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), uncovered a synthetic drug manufacturing facility. Investigators suspect links to Mexican drug cartels and allege that funds for the operation were routed from Dubai.
A similar illicit synthetic drug manufacturing facility was detected in the region in 2024.
The second development concerns the October 18 firing incident targeting actor Tiger Shroff in Mumbai. Delhi Police’s Special Cell arrested four people, including two women, for their alleged role in supplying the weapon used in the attack.
According to investigators, the pistol and ammunition were procured from Amritsar and transported to Mumbai through a network of intermediaries and couriers. The arrests exposed a supply chain connecting several cities, linked to organised criminal networks.
The two cases point towards a worrying possibility of Delhi-NCR becoming the logistics capital of organised crime.There are a strong indication of the region getting attention of criminal networks seeking access to markets, transport links, financial channels and a large pool of intermediaries.
Delhi’s commercial legacy is built on trust, mobility and the ability to connect markets. The same advantages that make the region attractive to legitimate businesses can also appeal to criminal syndicates. The solution is not to undermine commerce or frighten residents and investors but to ensure that economic openness is matched by effective law enforcement
Delhi has already acquired the uncomfortable labels of India’s crime capital and, as I have argued in these columns, a potential ‘crime-prime’ city, a place where criminality increasingly shapes the everyday lives of citizens. But the emergence of a regional infrastructure that can manufacture, finance, store or distribute contraband would represent a more dangerous stage in this evolution.
There is an important distinction between a city where crimes occur and a region that facilitates the operations of criminal networks. The former demands effective policing. The latter requires the dismantling of an entire ecosystem.
Drug cartels do not operate merely through the people caught inside a factory. They require premises, chemical supplies, equipment, financing, transport, communication channels, distribution networks and protection from detection.
Similarly, illegal firearms do not reach shooters by accident. Their movement depends on procurement agents, couriers, handlers, intermediaries and people who can arrange delivery without attracting attention.The individuals arrested in one operation may be replaceable. Unless the wider network is dismantled, the business can continue.
Delhi-NCR’s geography makes this challenge of dismantling networks particularly complex. Delhi, Noida, Greater Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurugram and Faridabad form an interconnected economic region but policing and administration remain divided among different jurisdictions. Criminal networks exploit these boundaries, shifting their operations from one district or state to another while investigators pursue separate pieces of the same chain.
The answer cannot be rounds of isolated raids followed by thumping of chests. The government needs a coordinated strategy that treats the entire National Capital Region as a connected security ecosystem. Government must measure success by the dismantling of networks, the disruption of their finances and the prevention of repeat operations and not simply by the number of raids conducted or arrests made.
Sidharth Mishra
Author and president, Centre for Reforms, Development & Justice