Ethiopian drug routes used by African drug cartels cause of concern for NCB

On the occasion of International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, various drug enforcement agencies have been deliberating on strategies to clamp down on African drug cartels that now use the Ethiopian drug trafficking route to peddle narcotics substances into Delhi.

The reason behind choosing this route is that the African drug cartels comprising mainly of Nigerian drug operatives have been increasingly relying on Middle Eastern and African drug routes, rather than the traditional golden crescent and golden triangle drug route.

The Narcotics Control Bureau's (NCB) Delhi Zonal Unit has busted a slew of African drug cartels in the past three months. According to NCB records, Cocaine is the most trafficked narcotics substance. Not only 15.75 kilograms of it has been seized but also 15 foreign nationals are in the cop net. Ranking next was charas with a seizure of more than 55 kilograms. Also, seven have been arrested.

"The South American based carriers reach Abu Dhabi from their native countries and then reach Delhi via Ethiopia. The traffickers can get high-quality cocaine from Colombia and Peru, and later get additional support from African drug trafficker connections, as the route in close to many African countries," said Madho Singh, the Zonal Director from NCB.

In most of the cases, the drug cartels employed drug carriers from South American countries like Bolivia and even South African nationals had been roped in to hoodwink the drug enforcement agencies.

NCB intelligence officers speaking on this trend, said, "In one case, the drug cartels roped in a South African senior citizen who comes from a middle-class family. In other cases, Bolivian women, who look like college students were used. It became really tough for us to identify the carrier based on technical surveillance."

However, the NCB has started conducting profiling classes for intelligence officers and have also identified a few air routes that may be used by drug traffickers.

Apart from the profiling, the officials over the past few months have been actively coordinating with African and Middle Eastern based drug enforcement agencies.

As the foreign nationals have been able to get past the airport security with narcotics substances, concealed in various cavities, the NCB officials are now increasingly relying on inputs from various drug enforcement agencies, an NCB source claimed. Apart from the high level of cocaine-related seizures, the agency had also synthetic drugs like Methaqualone (14.795 kilograms) and Amphetamine (440 grams).

"We have added ten new psychotropic substances like N-Bomb and Mephodrone under the NDPS Act. We plan on including many more psychotropic substances under the act," Singh added.