The Excise department may seek the intervention of a Central agency to probe the multiple seizures of premium drugs smuggled in from abroad, leading to three arrests from as many cities and registration of six different cases earlier this month.
Though the likelihood of handing over the case to the Excise Crime Branch (ECB) is also being considered, a senior official said that it was a more fitting case for roping in a Central agency since the help of agencies like Interpol will have to be sought as it involved the seizure of LSD stamps from the Netherlands and Qatar. The possibility of whether more such parcels of drugs have found their way through to the State from abroad will also have to be looked into.
The cases are now being investigated by excise teams in Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode. The move to handover the probe to ECB or even a Central agency is aimed at a more coordinated investigation covering all aspects, including the source of drugs and payment mode, which is suspected to have made in cryptocurrency through the Dark Web.
