Chittagong Bureau :The Bangladesh Navy recovered 15,00,000 pieces of contraband Yaba tablets worth around Tk 83 crore from the outer anchorage area of Chittagong Port early Thursday.They also seized an abandoned trawler which was used for carrying the drugs. This is the biggest ever haul of smuggled Yaba in the recent history of the country. The Rapid Action Battalion [RAB] seized 300,000 pieces from the Bay of Bengal near Teknnaf on Tuesday.No one, was however, arrested in this connection, Navy sources said. Commander Atiur Rahman, Anti-smuggling Cell’s Officer-in-Charge [OC] of Bangladesh Navy, said that a patrol team of naval personnel intercepted a fishing trawler in the Buoy zone-1 around 2:30am.The Navy challenged it due to its suspicious movement. But sensing the presence of the Navy patrol team, the smugglers fled away by boarding another trawler instantly near Parky Beach. Later, the law enforcers raided the trawler and recovered the tablets, said the Navy official in a press briefing, adding, the haul of smuggling goods entered through Teknaf border in Cox’s Bazar from Myanmar. A different route for smuggling Yaba is being used as the smugglers have now chosen water ways to transport the consignments to Chittagong by fishing trawlers from Southern areas in the backdrop of increasing monitoring by law enforcing agencies on road from Teknaf to Chittagong via Cox’s Bazar, he added. The seized Yaba tablets were handed over to the Narcotics Control Department while the seized trawler would be handed over to Chittagong Customs House, said the Navy official.
