DRI Seizes 10.8 kg Amphetamine Hidden In Postal Parcel

The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), which works under the Ministry of Finance, has broken up an attempt to bring narcotics into India through the ordinary post, seizing 10.8 kilograms of amphetamine at the Foreign Post Office in New Delhi. A smuggling syndicate had tried to pass the consignment off as routine international mail, and the agency says the case shows how legitimate trade channels are being tested by traffickers.

How the parcel was caught

Officers acted on specific intelligence and pulled out a suspicious parcel that had arrived from a European country. On its declaration the parcel was said to contain Kleren, that is, clothes. When the shipping carton was first opened, that is what appeared: ordinary household garments stuffed inside. It was only a closer examination of the packaging itself, rather than the goods in it, that gave the consignment away.

The concealment

The contraband had not been placed among the clothes at all. It had been worked into the structure of the carton. Two plastic pouches were hidden in each of the four sides of the box, which gave eight concealed packets in all. Each held a pink-coloured powdery substance, and testing confirmed it as amphetamine, a synthetic stimulant drug.

The law invoked

All eight packets were seized under the relevant provisions of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985, the central law that governs the control of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances in India and the punishment of trafficking in them. The DRI has said that further investigation is under way to trace the wider network behind the shipment, which means the seizure is being treated as an entry point into a syndicate rather than as a closed case.

Why it matters

Postal and courier streams carry an enormous number of small parcels, and each one cannot be opened. That is why the agency relies on intelligence-led enforcement, picking out the single consignment worth examining and then examining it thoroughly. For aspirants, the case is a reminder of what the DRI does: it is the apex anti-smuggling intelligence agency on the revenue side, and here it acted at the point where cross-border logistics meets customs control.