Coast Guard Seizes Rs 3,000 Crore Narcotics off Lakshadweep

The Indian Coast Guard (ICG), working with the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of Gujarat, has broken up a large sea-borne drug smuggling attempt in the Arabian Sea, to the west of Lakshadweep. The operation took place on 25 September 2026 and the consignment is valued at more than Rs 3,000 crore.

What was seized

About 526 kg of high-grade narcotic substances were taken, heroin and methamphetamine among them. Five Pakistani nationals who were running the boat were arrested. The vessel itself was an Iranian dhow, stopped and boarded on the high seas.

How the interception was done

The operation began from intelligence rather than from a chance sighting. Coast Guard ships and aircraft put the suspected boat under combined sea and air watch and tracked it without a break, and only then was a coordinated hot pursuit launched. The chase ended in the interception and boarding of the dhow well away from the coast. The boat, its crew and the seized drugs were then escorted under armed guard to Mumbai for joint questioning and investigation, to be followed by legal proceedings involving several agencies.

Why this route is watched

The stretch of the Arabian Sea between the Makran coast and India’s western seaboard has long been used to move heroin and synthetic drugs by dhow, which is why the Coast Guard keeps surveillance aircraft and ships on that arc and why so many seizures involve boats of this type. A haul of this size is read as a blow to an organised cross-border network rather than to one carrier.

The larger aim

The Coast Guard placed the operation within the national goal of a Nasha Mukt Bharat, a drug-free India, and repeated its position of zero tolerance towards illegal activity in India’s maritime zones. For an aspirant the case is a useful example of joint working between a central armed force at sea and a state police unit on land, since the arrest and the prosecution both run through Gujarat’s Anti-Terrorism Squad while the interception at sea was the Coast Guard’s.

Worth noting about the force

The Indian Coast Guard functions under the Ministry of Defence and is charged, among other duties, with preventing smuggling at sea, so drug interdiction of this kind is squarely part of its mandate rather than an incidental task.