#cybersecurity | hacker #deepweb | Bengaluru police bust drug racket: Dark web, Canadian dealers and flavoured meth

Bengaluru: Police in the capital city of Karnataka have busted what they claim is an international drug racket that used channels such as the dark web to smuggle narcotics into the country. The announcement in this regard was made by police commissioner Bhaskar Rao on Friday.

Rao told media outlets that the matter was first brought to the attention of Bengaluru police by the parent of a drug addict. Information shared with the city police led them to the apartment of one Atif Aslam. He hails from Kolkata in West Bengal and was living in rented accommodation.

Police recovered chocolate, cola and strawberry-laced amphetamine also known as crystal-meth from Aslam’s apartment. In total, 2.655 kg of drugs were seized during the raid. “Each gram of this was sold for ₹6,000,” revealed the police commissioner. As many as 14 packets of Marijuana hidden in milk powder boxes, 12 chocolate packs, weed-flavoured cigarettes were found at Aslam’s apartment. Cash amounting to ₹1 lakh was also recovered from his residence. Aslam has been booked at the Sadduguntepalya police station and charged under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and NDPS Act.

Interestingly, police told media outlets that the accused used the dark web to communicate with dealers abroad. Dark net is that part of the internet which is purposefully not accessible to the public. It is a hidden network whose architecture is superimposed on the Internet. Once they had established contact, the dealers shipped these drugs from Canada using Amazon courier.

Bengaluru police commissioner Bhaskar Rao said that the help of central agencies has been sought to determine how the drugs got through customs. With the seizure of this drug and law enforcement agencies realising that courier services can be used by dealers to source drugs from abroad and sell them in India. In fact, one can only hope that the same modus-operandi is being used by others across the country who are familiar with the dark net.

In May of this year, the Narcotics Control Bureau busted more than 50 kg of ketamine. Also known as the ‘date-rape drug’, this ketamine was produced in a concealed underground laboratory. Two people were arrested in this regard and booked under various sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act. One officer who was part of the bust had claimed that the total value of the seizure in the international market was somewhere close to ₹40 lakh.