Ten individuals (all Indian nationals) including the mastermind, carriers coming from abroad, retail distributors and middlemen have been arrested and produced before the courts for judicial remand.
The Customs Air Intelligence Unit on Tuesday seized 4.1 kilograms of hybrid ganja, that has an estimated market value of Rs 4 crore.
Thanks to the Union government’s decision to reduce the import duty on gold from 15% to 6%, gold smuggling through airports has seen a steep decline. However, Kerala is witnessing a spike in the smuggling of another contraband: hybrid ganja.
The arrest of two mules in recent weeks has seen the Chennai airport customs bust a reinvented modus operandi of drug smugglers using Sri Lanka as a transit point to bring in high-potent ganja varieties into the country.
