The emerging trend of international criminal syndicates using the containerised trade networks for trafficking drugs has posed a major challenge to the enforcement agencies in the region. In the past one year, about 3,500 kg of drugs, mostly heroin, has been seized from freight containers in the country.
The latest case which triggered an alarm was reported a few days ago when the Sri Lanka Customs seized more than 300 kg of cocaine from four containers destined to an Indian port. The contraband was being smuggled in the garb of scrap metal. The ship had reached the Colombo port from Panama via Belgium and Dubai.
