NCB arrests country's first 'darknet' narcotics operative

New Delhi: The NCB on Sunday said it has arrested the country's first 'darknet' narcotics operative for his involvement in drug trafficking. The arrested person found to be actively listed on two darknet markets - Empire market and Majestic Garden. Investigators said that the supplies were made to USA, UK, Romania, Spain and other European countries.

NCB identified the accused as Dipu Singh who was arrested from Alam Bagh in Lucknow. "Singh had mastered the technique to disguise the identity while making a shipment. It was learnt that the said parcel was devoid of KYC details," said Rajesh Nandan Srivastava, Deputy Director General (NCB).

He further said Singh used darknet as a major means to get the orders of psychotropic drugs. The network having international linkages is spread across India, Singapore and USA.

Global post offices and international courier services were used as logistics for illicit trade. The payments gateways of crypto currency were used by the operators to conceal the transactions from law enforcement agencies.

The official further said that the international network was supplying psychotropic drugs in the garb of erectile dysfunctional drugs, fitness supplements, health products. Orders procured from Darknet, wickerIds, Whatsapp and B2B platforms.

According to NCB three seizures were made by Mumbai Zonal Unit of NCB containing 33,000 (Tramadol and Zolpidam) psychotropic tablets found to be linked with this network.

"Total 22,000 psychotropic tablets seized by Delhi Zonal Unit," Srivastava said. The team under Deputy Director (Operations) K P S Malhotra made the breakthrough in the case. Last year on December 9, the team seized 9000 tablets of Tramdol destined to the UK from Mumbai.

Later information about two live consignments was then passed on to the UK which resulted in the interception of two packages shipped from India to the UK, each containing 16,000 tablets of psychotropic substance – Alprazolam on December 12, 2019. Later NCB further seized 5,000 tablets Tramadol destined for the UK and 9,430 tablets Zolpidem (psychotropic substance) destined for Romania on January 17, 2020.