NEW DELHI: The air route has become a dominant way of smuggling drugs, as the most expensive drug black cocaine is brought to the country through international passenger and cargo flights, officials said on Sunday.
The officials said that a report prepared by the Department of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) revealed that the recent seizures indicated an increasing trend of cocaine smuggling via air passenger routes.
The data showed that there was a 100 per cent increase over 12 months, as the cases increased from 21 in 2022-23 to 47 in 2023-24, with the majority of them taking place at international airports across the country, they said.
It is also learnt from the officials that cocaine is the only drug witnessing the upward trend in its smuggling into India.
A senior official said, “In recent years, India has witnessed a marked increase in the availability and use of various narcotic substances. In 2023-24, DRI registered 109 cases involving 8,223.61 kg of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, including 107.31 kg of cocaine, 48.74 kg of heroin, 136 kg of methamphetamine, 236 kg of mephedrone, and 7,348.68 kg of ‘ganja’.”
The increase in cocaine smuggling is largely attributed to trafficking from South America through African and Middle Eastern routes, the officials said, adding that there has been a notable rise in drug trafficking via ‘couriers and parcels’.
“The smuggling of cocaine and heroin through air cargo and human carriers, primarily from Africa and the Middle East, is increasing, particularly targeting major Indian cities. Most heroin seizures made by DRI in the past year involved trafficking via air routes from African countries and land routes through India’s porous northeastern borders,” the official said.
The DRI, in its report, has also analysed the reasons for increasing use of air routes by smugglers, and it concluded that this was because of the speed and growing volume of international air traffic, the officials said.
The role of DRI is more critical than ever as India faces mounting challenges with sophisticated smuggling methods, shifting global trade patterns, the misuse of emerging technologies, and the expanding network of transnational crime syndicates.
A new variety of cocaine, called ‘black cocaine’, is posing a challenge for all anti-drugs agencies, as it is difficult to detect using standard drug detection methods and thus can be smuggled through agents in the US and Europe.
“By chemically masking the cocaine with substances like charcoal or iron oxide, traffickers create a black powder undetectable by standard drug-sniffing methods. This variant is disguised as industrial products like printer toner or metal ores and requires a complex extraction process to revert to pure cocaine,” another official said.