SMUGGLERS of the intoxicating synthetic drug ‘Yaba’ are now using air routes to carry the pills to the capital from Teknaf. The new route is being used amid tougher vigilance on the drug smuggling, especially on highways, by law enforcers since the war against drug began on May 4. Despite death of at least 290 alleged drug traders in the hands of law enforcers, the illicit business has not yet stopped. Different smuggling syndicates now hire some carriers to bring the contraband items to the capital by hiding those in their rectums and abdomens.
This is not the first time that Yaba smugglers have changed their conventional routes to dodge law enforcers. Media reported that police recently held 32 people along with a total of 63,898 pills at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in the bygone four months. The smugglers think it is safer than the Dhaka-Chattogram Highway for quick movement. However, law enforcers have traced 15 syndicates in the Yaba smuggling to the capital from Cox’s Bazar.
What’s most surprising is that, the HSIA has no machine to detect non-metal objects, such as Yaba pills. The law enforcers have to depend on information to detect carriers. Sometimes they verify the background of passengers to gauge whether the person can afford a flight. The desperate smugglers wrap 50-100 pills in sticky tape and insert inside bananas which are then swallowed by the carriers before they board their flights. They excrete those out after reaching safe places in the capital. Male carriers insert small packs of the pills inside their rectum, while their female counterparts wrap them in plastic materials — such as condoms — and hide them in their cervix to dodge law enforcers. The Yaba traders target unemployed addicts first and lure them by paying a sum of money in exchange for being a carrier.
Around 100 Yaba traders are expected to surrender in a programme supposed to be held in Teknaf on February 16. We want to believe that it would not be an eyewash programme. The deadly drug trading would not be stopped unless the real godfathers behind the scene are caught.
