Despite the government’s much criticized war on drugs, the yaba trafficking syndicate has continued to use Bangladesh as a major transit route in the international methamphetamine trade.
Drug cartels are now increasingly using migrant workers as mules, telling them to carry presents back home to their families. In some cases, unsuspecting migrants try to do a fellow national a favour and become involved unknowingly. In some cases, they are trying to earn some extra money.
However, the involvement of migrant workers in the drug trade threatens Bangladesh’s labour exports, as more and more Bangladeshis are detained at airports worldwide with drugs. but the kingpins remain off the grid.
The police and the Department of Narcotics Control say that Bangladeshi migrants carrying yaba are being detained not only in India, but also Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Iraq, Malaysia, Singapore, China, and Germany.
Over 500 Bangladeshis have been detained at Qatar’s Doha Airport in the past five years.
Investigations by Qatari police have yielded suspiciously similar claims of detainees merely carrying presents from acquaintances to their families back home.
The Qatari authorities have arrested three Bangladeshis in the last three years.
On November 11, the Indian Narcotics Control Bureau detained two people in Kolkata with 800 yaba pills.
One of them was a Bangladeshi woman named Firoza Begum from Dinajpur. The other was a man, Choton Poddar, from South Dinajpur in West Bengal, across the border from Bangladesh’s Dinajpur.
The investigation prompted the Indian Narcotics Control Bureau to send a letter to its Bangladeshi counterpart, the Department of Narcotics Control (DNC), requesting an investigation of Firoza Begum’s connections.
After investigating Firoza Begum’s address in Dinajpur, it was learnt from , local councillor Abdur Rahim that Firoza had been living in Dinajpur for 17 years after moving from Natore, and she was previously involved in smuggling spices from India in Hili, Dinajpur.
However, Rahim denied knowing of Firoza’s involvement with drugs.
DNC Director (operations and intelligence) Dr AFM Masum Rabbani said: “Yaba continues to flow from Myanmar through Bangladesh to other countries. We are working to uncover their agents.”
Narcotics officials of Bangladesh and India believe a larger syndicate is perhaps behind the international drug network. But they expressed dismay at the lack of effective information sources.
According to the Armed Police Battalion (APBn), authorities seized 1,60,455 yaba pills from July 2018 to December 2 of this year at the Dhaka, Sylhet, Chittagong, and Cox’s Bazar airports. Authorities have filed 63 cases so far.
Additional Superintendent of Police (APBn Airport), Alamgir Hossain Shimul, told Dhaka Tribune most of the detained migrant workers say drug dealers asked them to carry food products to Bangladesh for their families.
The police officer said, though some of the mules are misled, there are those who carry the drugs knowingly.
The officer remarked: “Almost every mule who flies regularly from Cox’s Bazar to Dhaka, smuggles yaba.”