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AHMEDABAD: In a joint operation, the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) and Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) on Thursday seized nearly 260kg of heroin worth about ₹ 1,300 crore from a container at a Container Freight Station (CFS) of Deendayal Port Trust, people familiar with the matter said.

The raid was carried out following an input received by the ATS, which indicated that heroin had been smuggled into the country via a port in Iran. According to ATS officials, their initial information was that the consignment containing the drugs was lying at Container Freight Station near Kandla port for about six months as no one had come to claim it.

“It was then we got a tip that there could be heroin in the bags and we passed on the information to DRI,” said an ATS official.

The officers of Gujarat ATS and DRI tracked the consignment and raided the facility on Thursday.

Officials said the heroin bags were hidden among those containing gypsum powder and hence forensic experts were summoned by DRI.

“We checked one of the 17 containers sent from Afghanistan and found 13 bags containing 20 kg heroin in each bag. We are yet to inspect the other containers and we suspect that some of them may also contain the narcotic substance,” said a person aware of the matter.

Officials said they suspect that the consignment originated from Kandahar of Afghanistan, which was first sent to Pakistan from where it was shipped to Bandar Abbas Port in Iran, before landing in Kandla port.

Gujarat handles nearly one-third of the country’s cargo through its ports and is considered to have emerged as a key entry point for narcotics trafficking. In September 2021, DRI seized 3,000 kg of drugs from the Mundra port of Kutch, the biggest drug haul in the country. The case was later handed over to the National Investigation Agency to look into the angle of terror financing through drug smuggling.

In February this year, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) and the Navy seized around 750 kg of drugs from a ship off the Gujarat coast, worth over ₹ 2,000 crore.

Om Prakash Dadlani, spokesperson for Deendayal Port Trust said the CFS was about 17 km from Kandla port and that the DRI officials were investigating the drug seizure.

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