KOCHI: Around 19 kg of ephedrine worth over Rs one crore in the international market has been seized by Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) sleuths from the air cargo terminal of the Cochin International Airport Ltd(CIAL) on Thursday night. The contraband was bound for Malaysia and this is second such seizure in as many months. The contraband was concealed in cavities of big tea kettles and the seizure followed a tipoff. The consignment was found abandoned on the air terminal premises and a probe based on the CCTV footage is underway to identify the culprits.
The consignment, including 18 kg of ephedrine and 600 g of N-acetylanthranilic acid, was bound for Selangor, Malaysia. Officers said there had been a rise in the number of incidents involving attempts to smuggle out ephedrine as air cargo via various airports in South India.
“It is believed tight vigil and screening at Chennai and Bengaluru Airport had forced smugglers to choose Kochi for smuggling out the contraband,” they said. Earlier, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence(DRI) had seized around 55 kg of ephedrine from a Kuala Lumpur bound aircraft from CIAL.
The peddlers had concealed ephedrine powder which is used in the manufacture of mephedrone powder, also known as ‘party drug’, in some 60 bags to escape detection during routine inspection.