Foreign gangs are reportedly having a field day in the tourist hotspot, which, according to a source in the agency, is in the throes of a turf war.
Following last week’s seizure of 290kg of pseudoephedrine from a ‘kitchen laboratory’ run by an international gang in Thane district and with new year’s eve round the corner, the Narcotics Control Bureau’s attention is being focused again on the drug trade in Goa.
Foreign gangs are reportedly having a field day in the tourist hotspot, which, according to a source in the agency, is in the throes of a turf war, with Russian gangs holding sway over the North while the South is mostly controlled by the Israelis.
Israeli backpackers first penetrated Goa’s local drug cartels back in the 1990s, soon after India established full diplomatic ties with the Jewish state.
The Israelis started bringing in drugs for use at rave parties. But soon they encountered competition from the Russians, who also sought to control the trade in ‘designer drugs’.
Till the Israelis and the Russians arrived, it was the Africans, mostly Nigerian students and Kenyan tourists, who found Goa’s beaches a safe outlet for their drugs.
The Russian-Israeli tussle has a bearing on the drug trade that passes through Mumbai, Pune, and Thane, because raw materials for the drugs sold in Goa are sourced from these cities.
Top NCB officers admit that Goa has become a haven for international drug peddlers. Mumbai is mostly used as a transit point by smugglers ‘targeting’ other countries.
“Tourism and drugs both affect the local economy in their own ways,” said a senior NCB officer, who asked not to be identified.
The near absence of an effective counter-narcotics strategy is posing practical problems to curb the drug menace in Goa and Mumbai alike. Lax policing and a dearth of administrative will are contributing to the decreasing number of drugs-related arrests in Goa, even though the sale and use of drugs is on the rise.
The rackets, which do flourishing business, are mostly patronised by a section of the police and local politicians. “Rave parties — where participants indulge in the use of ‘designer drugs’ like Speed and Ecstasy — are a common feature across Goa at this time of the year,” said the senior officer.
Both the Israelis and the Russians are widely marketing drugs like Ecstasy to the US, he said. Goa being “loosely” governed, the drug cartels manage to survive by splitting the phases of production — basic chemistry at one location, drug tablet production at another, packaging at a third.
This is corroborated by NCB Director-General KC Verma’s statement to DNA a couple of days after the Thane drug haul. Verma had said, “The Thane seizure has worrying implications for other places as well because pseudoephedrine was being extracted from pharmaceutical products sold in the market.
The educed pseudoephedrine is then used to manufacture amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS). Such improvised reverse engineering is troubling.”
“There is a fierce battle for grabbing a share of the drug money in circulation,” said a senior police officer who has served in Goa. “Matters are getting worse with each passing day as the law-enforcing agencies in Goa find it difficult to function independently.”
d_anupam@dnaindia.net
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