Gang of medicine smugglers busted

A criminal gang, under the guise of garment accessories exporters, smuggled local medicinal drugs abroad for the last four years to produce narcotics.A team of Rapid Action Battalion-1 busted the smugglers’ den at the capital’s Uttara early yesterday and detained 10 people, including seven Chinese.“During primary interrogation, the detainees admitted that they have been smuggling tablets for the last four years in the name of exporting garment accessories such as buttons and zippers,” ATM Habibur Rahman, director of the Rab’s legal and media wing, told newsmen at a press briefing at its Uttara headquarters.The gang was sending 12 cartons of tablets to Hong Kong through Expo Freight Limited, an air freight company. The consignment weighed 300kg.Out of suspicion, the company with permission from Bangladesh Customs checked the cartons and found tablets in those instead of buttons as declared by its sender Mizanur Rahman.When Mizanur was contacted, Chinese national Lieu Xing Hui answered the phone, raising the freight company’s suspicion. The firm then informed the Rab about the matter.The elite force tested the tablets at its laboratory. They contained ephedrine, a chemical similar to methylamphetamine, the main ingredient of Yaba, said Habibur.The Rab-1 team then tracked down the alleged smugglers and raided their den on Road-11 of Sector-3 in Uttara.The detainees are Lieu Xing Hui 46, Rau Rui Aung,46 , Kui Haung Tu, 36, Jang Chau Liang, 40, Lin Lian Fu, 35, Lieu Xi Jin, 27, Yang Hi Cheng, 40, Mushfiqur Rahman Khan Sohel, 35, Raqibul Hassan, 34, and Muniruzzaman, 38.The law enforcers also recovered a huge amount of tablets of different renowned Bangladeshi companies, an apparatus for producing fake medicine, liquor, six foreign passports, Tk 24,40,300 and some US currency notes from their possession.The Chinese nationals have been here on work permits. Two of them are overstaying their visas. They collected the tablets with the help of the three Bangladeshis, two of whom are medical representatives of drug companies.“Though the tablets are prescription drugs, the Bangladeshis bought those from pharmacies in bulk at prices higher than the maximum retail price,” said the Rab official.According the Narcotics Control Act, 1990, ephedrine is a controlled drug and special government permission is required for its export, import and storage.A controlled drug also in other countries, ephedrine is not available for purchase in large quantities. The quality of Bangladeshi medicines is high and can be purchased easily from drug stores, which often sell medicines without prescription, mentioned Habibur.Responding to a query by a reporter, he said till now they have no knowledge of illegal laboratories in the country where ephedrine is separated from tablets to produce meth and yaba.The seized tables, including those in 12 cartons, have an estimated worth of Tk 2.5 crore.The Rab-1 last night handed over the detainees to police and filed a case with Uttara Police Station under the special powers act against them for smuggling of medicinal drugs.