The Customs officials at Chennai Airport on Wednesday, April 6 arrested three persons for smuggling 49.2 kgs of Pseudoephedrine worth Rs 9.86 crore. A senior Customs official said that based on specific information, Chennai Customs Air Cargo Intelligence Unit (ACIU), seized 49.2 kgs Pseudoephedrine concealed inside paper board packing material from a UAE bound export consignment.
The official said that the trio had violated provisions of section 8 of the NDPS (Narcotic Drugs & Psychotropic Substances) Act, and had committed offence punishable under section 21, section 23 and section 29 of NDPS Act. They were produced before a court, which remanded them to 14 days judicial custody.
Earlier in March, the Chennai Customs department had seized MDMA tablets and ganja worth Rs 1.61 lakh that arrived from the Netherlands, at the Foreign Post Office in Chennai. Acting on specific inputs, the department officials found MDMA tablets and the narcotic substance in two parcels that came from the Netherlands.
According to a press release, the parcels were addressed to two different individuals in Vijayawada and Hyderabad respectively. A total of 32 tablets of MDMA and 419 grams of ganja (cannabis) valued at Rs 1.61 lakh were seized under relevant sections of the Customs Act, 1962, it said.
Before this, the Chennai police had led an investigation and busted a meth lab in Andhra Pradesh. The son of a police inspector was found to be in possession of one kilogram of methamphetamine (MDMA), and he was arrested on March 7. When the police investigated further, they reportedly found that a person named Ramesh was supplying the drugs from Hyderabad. Police said that Ramesh would visit Chennai about every 20 days and supply the drugs to dealers there. The police also nabbed a gang that would supply the drugs in the city.