Concealing yaba in tyres, petticoats

The Department of Narcotics Control has arrested a key coordinator of a drug syndicate and a carrier who used to smuggle consignments of yaba pills to Dhaka from Cox's Bazar.

The carrier then distributed the pills to dealers in northern districts using female drug mules.

DNC officials first arrested carrier Md Alamgir, 40, a truck driver by profession, from the capital's Gopibagh on Wednesday with 10,000 pieces of Yaba concealed in the spare wheel's tube of a truck in which he was carrying the consignment.

Following information divulged from Alamgir, DNC officials arrested Md Shahjahan, 26, from Savar's Hemayetpur area. Later, raiding his rented residence, the officials seized 15,000 yaba pills concealed in two petticoats.

DNC disclosed it in a press briefing at its headquarters in Dhaka yesterday.

DNC assistant director (Dhaka metro north) Md Mehedi Hasan who led the drives said the female mules would wear these petticoats to supply the pills to the wholesale dealers in the northern districts, including Rangpur, Thakurgaon and Panchagarh.

For carrying each consignment, a mule used to get Tk 10,000 to Tk 15,000, he added.

Md Shahjahan, hailing from Thakurgaon, used to bring yaba pills from traders in Cox's Bazar after dealers in the northern districts placed their demands. He used truck drivers to carry the consignments to the capital from Teknuf, hiding them inside goods and spare truck wheels.

Shahjahan has already two cases against him under the Narcotics Control Act.

"The arrestees admitted that for every 10,000 pills, a truck driver used to get Tk 1,00,000 to Tk 1,50,000," Mehedi told The Daily Star yesterday.

He also said Alamgir, hailing from Chattogram, admitted that he used to earn Tk 1,00,000 to Tk 2,00,000 on each trip.