DRI Seizes Foreign Currency, Tusks, Drugs and E-Cigarettes

The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), the smuggling-detection arm under the Ministry of Finance, announced four separate enforcement actions on 10 November 2026. Together they cover foreign currency, wildlife articles, narcotics and banned e-cigarettes, and they show the range of offences the agency works on.

Currency carriers held at Kolkata airport

Acting on intelligence, DRI officers stopped seven passengers bound for Bangkok in the early hours of 6 November 2026 at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport, Kolkata. Assorted US dollars and pounds sterling worth Rs 3.12 crore were recovered from them, hidden inside notebooks, in double-layered compartments of trolley bags, inside shoes and in the pockets of packed clothes. All seven members of the syndicate were arrested and charged under the Customs Act read with FEMA regulations. Currency worth another Rs 0.39 crore was found with other passengers, who were handed over to the Customs formation.

Elephant tusks recovered in Assam

On 5 November 2026 DRI officers intercepted five suspects on two two-wheelers near Sonapur Toll Gate, about 27 km from Guwahati, at around 1740 hours. The suspects brandished a Khukri and a Dao, abandoned their bag and fled into a village. The bag held two elephant tusks of 29 inches and 30 inches, weighing about 3.7 kg in all. They were seized under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 and handed to the Assam State Forest Department. Elephant tusks fall under Schedule I of that Act and Appendix I of CITES.

The four actions at a glance

Amphetamine and e-cigarettes

• A trafficker travelling by bus from Delhi to Bhopal on 5 November 2026 was caught with 6.642 kg of amphetamine in three packets; the substance is controlled under the NDPS Act, 1985 and the accused was already on bail in another NDPS case of the Bengaluru Police.
• At Jawaharlal Nehru Port, a consignment declared as Mop Rod was found to hide 6,000 pieces of Yuoto Thanos and 7,000 pieces of Yuoto Lens e-cigarettes, 13,000 in all, valued with the cover cargo at over Rs 4 crore.
• E-cigarettes and all Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems are banned in India by the Prohibition of Electronic Cigarettes Act, 2019.
• In the current financial year 2026-27 the DRI has seized about 3,55,000 e-cigarettes worth more than Rs 135 crore in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi and West Bengal.