Date-rape drug bust at Sahar

The Air Intelligence Unit (AIU), customs department, that successfully intercepted two Spaniards, Giminez Gorge, 29, and Morato Javier, 38, for trying to smuggle four kg of a chemical on a Zurich-bound flight on September 23, have confirmed it to be ketamine hydrochloride (KH) — infamous for its use as a date rape drug.

It may be recalled that in January this year, the police had arrested two persons, Sunil Multhani and Suresh Krishnani, who raped a South African national of Indian origin after spiking her drink with ketamine at a pub in Bawa International Hotel, Vile Parle.

A senior customs official said, “KH is available in India for Rs15,000 to Rs20,000 a kilo, but its value is 25 times the amount abroad. The duo got away with fines of Rs15,000 and Rs10,000 respectively as KH is not a banned substance.”

The Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) recently launched an investigation after a whopping 15 tonne of KH purchased by pharmaceutical traders in Mumbai ‘disappeared’ in May, 2006. FIRs were filed in over nine police stations in Mumbai and Thane and several pharmaceutical traders were arrested.

Former FDA commissioner Ramesh Kumar (now commissioner, small and medium scale industries in Maharashtra) under whose tenure the investigations were launched said: “The investigations were completed and some of the licenses of those involved in the trade were cancelled. They are being prosecuted.”

“The fact that KH is now being sold as a ‘high’-inducing drug is known to us. It offers unscrupulous traders enormous profit margins. There appears to be a strategy to smuggle large quantities of as yet unaccounted KH stock out of the country,” the customs official said.