Punjab: Cross-border drug cartel, 5 Kg Heroin recovered

Chandigarh (Punjab) [India], Janaury 7 (ANI): Punjab police has dismantled a cross-border drug cartel that was operating with the help of drone technology to smuggle drugs from Pakistan.

Punjab’s Director General of Police (DGP), Gaurav Yadav, took to X to announce the breakthrough, revealing that the Amritsar Commissionerate Police arrested four individuals involved in the illegal trafficking operation.

According to DGP Yadav, the arrested individuals were in contact with Pakistan-based smugglers who used drones to push narcotics across the India-Pakistan border.

“In a major breakthrough, Amritsar Commissionerate Police has busted a cross-border drug cartel by arresting 4 accused who were in contact with #Pakistan-based smugglers using drones to push drugs across the border. 5 Kg Heroin recovered, and an FIR under the NDPS Act has been registered at PS Chheharta, Amritsar. Investigations are ongoing to trace backward and forward linkages,” the DGP wrote in his post.

Authorities have also registered an FIR under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act at the Chheharta police station in Amritsar. Investigations are continuing, with Punjab Police working to trace both the “forward and backward linkages” of the cartel.

Meanwhile, on January 5, in a crackdown against narco-drones, Border Security Force recovered a quadcopter (drone) from a sugarcane field along the border in Amritsar district, according to a press statement.

A search based on specific input led to the recovery of 1 DJI Mavic 3 Classic drone from the sugarcane farming field adjacent to Ballaharwal village of district Amritsar, the statement said.

Earlier, the Punjab Frontier of the Border Security Force in coordination with the Punjab Police, conducted a joint operation and recovered a drone along with two packets of heroin along the Tarn Taran border.

The recoveries took place in two separate incidents and were based on actionable information received by the security personnel. In the first incident, security personnel recovered a drone along with a packet of suspected heroin weighing 562 grams from a farming field near the village of Dal in the Tarn Taran district, the release stated.