The Air Customs Postal Intelligence on Wednesday said it has confiscated one postal parcel, sent from the Netherlands, and found to contain narcotics pills. The parcel was seized at the Foreign Post Office in Chennai and one person has been arrested in this connection.
According to the Commissioner of Customs, the parcel was found to contain one tin toy box in which two plastic pouches were present.
"On opening the pouches, green-yellow colour pills and pink colour pills were found ingeniously concealed inside. The pills tested positive for MDMA (3,4- methylenedioxy-methamphetamine), a narcotics substance," the statement said.
The 400 pills are valued at Rs 12 lakh. The green-yellow colour pills are commonly known as 'Brazuca' and contain more than 220 mg MDMA, whereas the pink colour pills, known as 'Givenchy', has 250 mg of MDMA. Samples have been sent to the laboratory.
The parcel was consigned to a person based in Bhimavaram in West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, about 550 km from Chennai.
As a follow up action, a search was carried out at his residential address by a team of officers from Customs (Preventive) Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh.
The accused was brought to Chennai by a special team of Chennai Air Customs by road. He confessed to his role in the smuggling and was arrested and produced before the judicial magistrate who sent him to judicial custody.
Chennai Air Customs seized 400 "Ecstacy pills" of MDMA, a narcotic drug valued at Rs 12 lakhs from a postal parcel at Foreign Post Office Chennai.The parcel was sent from Haarlem Netherlands & was addressed to a person in Bhimavaram (AP) who has been arrested under NDPS Act. pic.twitter.com/tffH35jQbw
— Chennai_Customs (@Chennai_Customs) June 17, 2020
The accused, who is an engineering dropout, said he had booked the parcel online through 'Dark Web' and had made the payment in 'Bitcoin', a form of Crypto-Currency.
The News Minute had earlier reported over an emerging trend where young, educated, upper-class party-drug users slowly start peddling. Most of the orders are placed on the dark web and delivered from foreign countries, especially the Netherlands, by post.
The major drug bust in Tollywood, the Telugu film industry, in 2017, had also found that dealers who were allegedly supplying drugs to prominent movie personalities including actors and directors, were following the same modus operandi.
IANS inputs
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