Ecstasy tablets numbering around 1,980 worth Rs 1 crore has been found hidden inside a foot massager that was recovered from the air cargo of Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) last day. The information states that the drugs have smuggled from Belgium to Bengaluru being hidden inside the foot massaging machine.
“Officers at the Bengaluru International Courier Centre detected 1980 grams of MDMA (Methylenedioxymethamphetamine)/ecstasy pills concealed inside an electric foot massager. The drugs are estimated to be worth around Rs 1 crore,” a customs officer said.
Ecstasy tablets or ecstasy pills are also known as Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA). These drug pills are also termed as Molly, which is its street name. It is a psychedelic substance that is widely used as a party drug and bears massive demand in the metropolitan cities like Bengaluru and amongst the partygoers.
As stated by the sources with the Bangalore customs at the airport, the ecstasy tablets were kept confined inside a German-built foot massager that was shipped from Belgium via the air cargo. The consignment was declared as the medical equipment and reached the cargo section of KIA the day earlier. On hitting with a suspicion that rose from the tampered machine and its packaging, the customs officers took in possession the machine and put in the scanner, a high-end scanning device. The scanning reported some colourful spots inside the appliance. The officers opened the machine and discovered a bunch of colourful pills (ecstasy tablets till then not confirmed) that was stuck with a brown tape all over the pedal zone.
The customs team then sent the pills for lab testing, which confirmed that the drugs were ecstasy tablets or MDMA that have been smuggled in. The entire machine was dismantled that led them to 1,980 pills in green and violet colours, as the source states. Currently, the investigators are probing on the receiver’s identity for whom the foot massager containing ecstasy tablets worth one crore had been parcelled into Bengaluru.
“An investigation is now underway. We are now trying to retrieve more information to identify the receiver of the parcel,” sources from the customs department added.
The drug peddlers these days are purchasing various psychoactive substances, including the ecstasy tablets from the dark web with the help of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. They are then getting them smuggled into multiple Indian cities including Bangalore via the parcel route of Foreign Post Office (FPO) or the air cargo. The drugs are smartly concealed in the products to deceive the customs. The investigators believe that this one crore of drug seizure at the Bengaluru airport cargo is via a similar modus operandi.
Source: Times Of India
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