Foreign drug mafia shifting base to state: Narcotics bureau

KOCHI: The narcotics control bureau (NCB) has found that foreign nationals like Nigerians who are involved in drug trafficking and organizing rave parties have started shifting their base to Kerala. The foreigners are coming to the state under the guise of joining educational institutions or local football clubs and are then engaging in drug trafficking and organizing rave parties.
They have begun to shift their base to Kerala from cities like Bengaluru, Chennai, Salem and Coimbatore against the background of professional colleges mushrooming in the state. Officials say that they would bring cocaine, which is mainly used for rave parties, from abroad and send heroin from north India to other countries.
"They use courier service for the purpose. So, we have given instructions to the courier agencies to check the credentials of foreigners before sending their couriers," said NCB Kerala superintendent Venugopal G Kurup. "We have conducted training classes for the representatives of courier services in Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi. Besides, we have given written instructions to major courier agencies," said Kurup.
The NCB officials had got calls from their counterparts in many North American and European countries, informing them about the drugs being sent from Kerala by foreigners through courier services. "The foreigners who are involved in such drug trade provide wrong hotel names for their address when they send out couriers containing narcotics. We have found that all such information provided by the 'sender' are fake," said Kurup.
"So we have asked the couriers agencies to demand the original passport, rather than a copy, when a foreign approaches them for sending a courier. The agency should also crosscheck with the hotels where the foreigner claims to be staying and confirm it before sending the courier," he said. Some courier agencies in Kerala have given us tip offs on a couple of suspected cases, Kurup added.
In case of football clubs, the NCB has just started the procedures. "Following a tip off that three Africans are playing for a football club at Kothamangalam, our officials went there and found that there are in fact nine playing for two clubs there. On Wednesday, our officials who watched a football match at Edappally found that there were two foreigners playing for a local club," an NCB official said.
The NCB has also got information that these foreigners are planning to organize rave parties in cities like Kochi.
NCB officials say that it is very difficult to crack down on drug gangs involving foreign nationals. "If they arrive in Kerala from their countries directly by flight, the foreigner regional registration office (FRRO) officials can collect all their details from them. But, they come first to cities like Chennai and Bengaluru. They then reach Kerala by road or rail. This makes identifying and tacking them difficult," an official with the NCB said.