DRI Seizes 137 kg Crystal Meth in Nagapattinam

The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), which works under the Ministry of Finance, has taken 137 kg (gross) of crystal methamphetamine out of circulation in a coastal village of Nagapattinam district, Tamil Nadu. The agency announced the seizure on 18 October 2026, calling it one of the largest narcotics hauls in the coastal belt of the state in recent years.

How the operation ran

Officers acted on specific intelligence that a large consignment of narcotics had been moved to a coastal spot in the district for storage before being sent out of the country. Surveillance and enforcement work was carried through 16 and 17 October 2026, and the search turned up six duffel bags holding 27 silver-foil packets of roughly 5 kg each. The packets held a white crystalline substance believed to be methamphetamine of high purity.

The route that was foiled

The consignment, investigators say, was meant for Sri Lanka, to be handed over through a mid-sea transfer rather than at any port. On the illicit market the seized drug would fetch more than Rs 100 crore. The case therefore reads as an attempt to use India's coastline as a corridor for synthetic drugs, which is exactly the traffic the agency says it is working to shut down.

What else was seized, and the arrests

A simultaneous search at the premises of the suspected organiser of the shipment yielded Rs 10 lakh in cash, thought to be proceeds of earlier sales. Two four-wheelers and one two-wheeler allegedly used to move the drug were seized as well. Four persons have been arrested and remanded to judicial custody. Those held are said to cover the different links of the chain: organising the coastal despatch, transport, storage and logistics.

The law invoked

Both the contraband and the arrests fall under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985, the statute that governs banned narcotic and psychotropic substances in India. Crystal methamphetamine is a banned synthetic drug.

Facts at a glance