BENGALURU: Drug traffickers have developed a variety of inventive ways to obscure their cargos and transport them to the city. One of the modus operandi is very simple - hide the drugs by removing the headlight of the vehicles and transport them in the storage compartment of the inter-state private buses where two-wheelers are being placed.
Another interesting aspect is how one gets in touch with the peddlers.
According to sources, consumers use Instagram, the social media app, to get in touch with peddlers whose locations are unknown. They use keywords such as #weed, #hash to get in touch with the peddlers. The consumers then pay online and get the drugs brought in from cities such as Hyderabad, Chennai and Kerala depending on the type of drug that has been ordered.
“For example, if someone has ordered Idukki gold, a well-known ganja type, it will be brought from Kerala,” a source said.
As of now, social media has made the city's youngsters, especially college students get easy access to drug peddlers.
“We find out how drugs are smuggled in through informants and those who are already into drugs. There is a group of people who take the risk to and travel to these places (such as Hyderabad, Chennai and Kerala) and collect the parcels personally. However, synthetic drugs such as cocaine come in from cities such as Mumbai through foreigners,” said a senior police official.
Apart from this, the parcels sent through the darknet is difficult to track since it is sent from countries such as US and Italy where drugs are legal. “The parcel is sent directly to their homes,” the official added.
“Generally inter-city and inter-state drugs are brought in through trains, buses and personal vehicles from Odisha and Visakhapatnam. We also noticed that women are the biggest transporters of drugs since nobody will suspect them,” says Mohan Kumar, Assistant Commissioner of Police (Women and Narcotics). However, he said, though city police see at least 5-6 drug transport cases in a month, they are not aware of this new system (using storage compartment of private buses).
City police commissioner Alok Kumar admitted that he too was not aware of such a trend among youngsters. "I have seen cases where former college students take up peddling on the side apart from their full-time job and selling ganja to students. Unfortunately, in those cases, the drugs had been smuggled from Kerala," he told TNIE. In addition to this, Kumar also urged the public to come forward and share such information. "We will look into this and take action."