HYDERABAD: Turning hub for synthetic drugs

Hyderabad: Drug Ketamine, valued around 2.37 crores was seized this week by customs officials from a passenger from Hyderabad Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, says that was just a small quantity, according to Deccan Chronicle.
The man was trying to smuggle the seized drug to Malaysia through air. On questioning, the man said he belongs to a drug racket which smuggles synthetic drugs worth millions of dollars into foreign markets through air flights. He disclosed Hyderabad is their hub for manufacturing synthetic drug like Methamphetamine, Ketamine, Ephedrine and Methaqualone (meth) and that they usually take orders from their foreign partners and smuggle the orders into South East Asian countries.
The drug manufacturers are using the growing small scale pharmaceutical units on the city outskirts to produce the desired drugs by giving the owners handsome amount of money.“The gangs usually take the manufacturing units on rent for a few days and produce the material. It does not take much time for an experienced pharmacist to manufacture a huge quantity of synthetic drugs,” said a senior official from Rachakonda police.
It is difficult to hunt down the bosses of these rackets since they are unknown to the workers and the pharmacists as they are only hired for temporary work.
Lack of coordination between various departments like State Police, Drug Control Administration, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Customs department help these thugs escape before their head bosses are arrested.“When customs officials capture a smuggler at the airport, they try to investigate the case. But the department has so many limitations, it’s hard for them to go out into the field, where the production of drugs really happens, and track down the leaders of the racket,” said a former customs official.
City Police says they busts rackets by conducting raids basing on information they get from intelligence and arrest them but in a period of short time new gangs are formed with these suspects. Arresting the minds behind these rackets becomes difficult for them, though they arrest the owners of the labs, finding a new lab is easy since there are dozens of active labs available. In a period of short time new gangs are formed with these suspects.