Afghan national held with 460g of heroin

Ahmedabad: The Gujarat anti-terrorist squad (ATS) arrested an Afghan national, who is allegedly part of an international drug syndicate involved in smuggling heroin by sea and transporting it to Delhi, an official said on Friday.
An ATS team on Thursday conducted a raid in the Bhogal area of Delhi and apprehended Mohammad Yasin Miya Sahib (27) with 460g of heroin, worth Rs 2.5 crore, the official said.
According to a statement from the ATS, the agency was investigating a case in which 8kg of heroin was smuggled into India by sea and transported to a person in the Tilak Nagar area of Delhi in Sept 2023. The investigation revealed that an unidentified Nigerian person and Afghan national, Sahib, were part of that drug cartel, it said.
Sahib, from Jalalabad in Afghanistan, said he had bought 4kg of heroin from a Nigerian man in Tilak Nagar around eight months ago and sold 3.5kg of it, the release said.
The accused, who was living in Greater Noida, came to Bhogal to deliver the remaining 460g to a customer as directed by the Nigerian person, it stated.
Sahib had arrived in India in 2017 on a medical visa and started working as a translator for Afghan nationals who came to Delhi for treatment, the release said.
His visa expired two years ago and he has applied to UNHCR for a refugee card, it said.
In March, ATS had arrested three relatives of an absconding drug dealer, Isa Hussain Rao, including his wife and son, for allegedly helping him smuggle 8kg of heroin into the country by sea and delivering the contraband to a foreigner in Delhi in Oct last year.
Rao, a native of Jodia village of Jamnagar district, has been absconding since 2021 and is currently based in Africa. He was one of the main accused in the seizure of heroin worth Rs 600 crore by Gujarat ATS in Morbi district in 2021.
Rao’s wife Tahira and son Arbaz were among those arrested. A kilogram of heroin is worth near Rs 5 crore in the international market.
The ATS investigation had revealed that Rao’s Pakistan-based associates had sent 120kg of heroin worth Rs 600 crore by sea and then moved to Morbi after it landed at Salaya port near Jamnagar.
ATS learnt that Rao had sent 8kg of heroin in Oct last year using the same modus operandi with the help of his Pakistan-based drug trafficker, Murtaza, the agency said in the release. It said a Gujarat-registered boat took delivery of the contraband in international waters near the Oman coast from Murtaza, who was on board another vessel.
The boat delivered the heroin on the coast near Veraval on Oct 16 last year. The contraband, as directed by Rao, first reached Abu Road in Rajasthan by road, and was then delivered to a foreign national in Tilak Nagar in Delhi, it said.
ATS said Tahira, who lives in Jodia village, their daughter Masuma, Arbaz and Masuma’s fiancé Rizwan Taiyab were involved in taking the delivery at Veraval and transporting the consignment to Delhi.