DNC arrests 2 drug kingpins in Dhaka
The Department of Narcotics Control have arrested two drug kingpins of a smuggling racket yesterday and came to know that there are five warehouses in four districts where yaba pills smuggled from Myanmar are kept.
A DNC team of Dhaka Metro (north) arrested Lipi Rahman, 40, and her associate Razzaq Liton, 50, along with another yaba dealer from the capital's Motijheel and Hazaribagh areas Saturday afternoon.
Md Mehedi Hasan, assistant director (north) of DNC, who led the drive, disclosed the matter to The Daily Star.
Around 13,500 yaba pills were recovered from their possession.
"Lipi is wanted in a murder case and Razzaq is wanted in two other narcotic cases," he said.
Mehedi said Lipi was in-charge of selling yaba in Gazipur and Razzaq in the Signboard area of Narayanganj. Both dealers used to bring and sell four to five consignments each month, he said.
According to the DNC, the warehouses were built to store and move yaba smoothly into the capital after smuggling those into Bangladesh from Myanmar. The warehouses were in Teknaf of Cox's Bazar, Chattogram, Cumilla, and Brahmanbaria.
The point of these depots was to move the smuggled pink tablets from one hub to another in the shortest possible time, right under the nose of law enforcement agencies, they added.
According to the DNC, the syndicate uses women, especially those who wear burqa and have kids with them, as mules. In each consignment, they smuggle at least 10,000-20,000 yaba pills, and the mules get a payment of Tk 20,000 for each successful delivery.
Besides using women, these dealers have a wide range of carriers that include transport workers, and low-income people, said Mehedi, adding, "We have got the names of some three to four other people directly involved in the trade and are conducting drives to arrest them."
"We have also come to know that these two dealers made a huge amount of money through narcotics trade. We are investigating that matter," he added.
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