CUSTOMS officials at Chittagong Port have recovered a barrel of imported cocaine. The consignment was imported in a container of Sunflower one and a half months ago but remained unattended by the reported importer or his local agents. The cocaine was detected as liquid substance inside a barrel that weighed 185 Kg. The consignment was booked from Bolivia along with 106 other barrels on May 12, which is not a normal shipping route for Bangladesh businesses, and this is what raised the suspicion of the Customs officials to verify the goods. The consignment was shipped from Montevideo Port of Uruguay, which arrived in Chittagong via Singapore. What this discovery showed is that international smugglers have started to use Chittagong Port to evade the notice of global watch on movement of drug which is very expensive and believed to be destined to move onward to USA, Canada and Europe. Cocaine is mainly cultivated in Bolivia, Peru and Uruguay and sent to North America where buyers can afford it. But since it is always strictly watched, the smugglers also constantly align or realign new routes to make safe passage of the drugs to the West. Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate of Bangladesh said they became sure about the cocaine after two tests, one of which was done at Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research in Dhaka. They said the quantity of the cocaine could not be known immediately as they do not have the adequate technical equipment to ascertain the content of the substance. Chittagong Metropolitan Police said the container was imported without opening Letter of Credit (LC) and remained stuck up at the port. The Special Branch (SB) of Police was informed by a foreign intelligence agency about the smuggling of the drug through a container from South America to somewhere else using Bangladesh as a transit. On opening of the container, 107 barrels were found and were sealed off by Chittagong Detective Branch (DB) of Police on June 6. Initially, an expert team from Narcotics Control Department (NCD) conducted the primary test on samples but could not detect the presence of any cocaine component in them. However, it was later ascertained to be cocaine. What is most agonizing is the use of Chittagong Port as narcotics trafficking route. It is clear that poor Bangladesh is not the market for cocaine, because it is much more expensive even for the Bangladesh neo-riche. Our market is dominated by less expensive drugs like Phensidyl, Yaba and it suggests that the ultimate destination of the consignment was the rich Western market.But what is more important is that the emergence of Bangladesh as a cocaine trafficking route may bring our shipping and exports under more vigilance at the Western ports and eventually make export business even tougher. However, critics with knowledge of world trade modalities, including that of contraband substances, doubt that persons walking through the corridors of high power and their helping associates in the bureaucracy, are covertly active in the deal, which often, if successful, yields big money profit. So Bangladesh Port authorities and specially the capacity of the government narcotics detecting agency must be enhanced and equipped with rapid testing facility to handle such consignment. There must be clear signal to the global community that our Port authorities are capable to stop this route to keep Bangladesh exports unaffected by it any time any way.
