Narco-cartel smuggling drugs to USA from Pakistan via India busted

Police officers said the cartel used drones to drop drug consignments inside Indian territory near Kot Data from across the border.

An international narcotics cartel, smuggling drugs to the USA from Pakistan via India, was busted after its alleged kingpin was arrested from Tarn Taran in Punjab, police said on Thursday.

The suspect, identified as Lakhbir Singh, 23.

The suspect, identified as Lakhbir Singh, 23, is a resident of Kot Data village in Tarn Taran, which is hardly 4km from the India-Pakistan international border from where the drugs were being smuggled. A crime branch team had arrested Singh from near his village on Tuesday night and had kept him in three-day police remand.

“He has a few more associates working for him in India who are yet to be caught. He deleted all the data on his mobile phone by formatting it. Attempts will be made to recover them with the help of forensic experts. Raids are on at several locations in Punjab on the basis of the information provided by him,” said a senior police official preferring anonymity.

Police officers said the cartel used drones to drop drug consignments inside Indian territory near Kot Data from across the border. Singh and his associates would allegedly retrieve the parcels, repackage them to look like general couriers containing household items and ship them to the United States. The consignments were routed through international airports in Delhi and Mumbai.

He said the racket used local or domestic logistics firms to book couriers for foreign shipments to avoid detection as they lack scanning facility. However, the consignments risked detection when the local firms would transfer the shipment to larger logistics companies equipped with scanning systems.

Vikas Kumar Arora, Gurugram police commissioner, said that teams were interrogating Singh to get further details about this trans-national drug cartel.“He has been taken to Punjab. Further investigation in the case is on to ascertain since when was the cartel functional and how many more suspects are associated with Singh,” he said adding that the Intelligence Bureau and Punjab police have been alerted about the entire development.

Officers said Singh had been absconding for nearly two and a half years after one of his shipments to the United States was seized at the hub of an international logistics firm in Gurgaon’s Udyog Vihar Phase-II, Sector 20. During X-ray screening, the package was flagged as suspicious by employees, leading to its inspection

Haryana State Narcotics Control Bureau (HSNCB) was roped in and the package was opened from which four pairs of shoes, apparels and other items including two containers of chyawanprash of one kilogram each were found.

Hidden inside the containers, beneath a layer of the herbal paste, were 420 grams and 422 grams of opium respectively. Following the seizure, the police had registered an FIR under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act at Udyog Vihar police station on May 25, 2023.

The officer said that since then, multiple raids were conducted in Tarn Taran with local police assistance to trace Singh, but he remained at large and continued his operations. He was finally apprehended with support from senior Punjab Police officials, revealing what investigators suspect has been a running the international drug trafficking racket for several years.

During questioning, police found that Singh had allegedly amassed a mere ₹66 lakh in the past year. “The majority of the money was credited into his bank account from the USA. He made cash withdrawals in Punjab,” the officer said.

“Singh confessed to sending five to six drug consignments to the USA before and after May 2023, after receiving the supplies from Pakistan via drones, although the actual number could be much higher. The parcels were addressed to illegal immigrants in the USA who had entered via ‘donkey routes’,” he said.

The officer said that the USA receivers earned ₹25-30 lakh from each consignment that reached to them which was more than five times the value in India.

Police said each shipment earned receivers in the USA between ₹25–30 lakh, more than five times its value in India. Singh was reportedly in contact with three receivers in the USA and several handlers in Pakistan, coordinating via WhatsApp and social media platforms. Investigators suspect the racket’s origins may trace back to Afghanistan, though officials said this would only be confirmed after further inquiry.

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