In a major breakthrough, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) has made the largest seizure of LSD, a psychedelic drug also known as acid, in the past two decades and arrested six members of a syndicate having links in countries such as the United States, Netherlands and Poland.
The drug haul includes 14,961 blots of LSD from international brands “Gammagoblin/Holy Spirit of Asura” and 2.23 kg of curated marijuana (imported). The accused persons, including a girl, were arrested during the simultaneous raids in and around Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. They used darknet for procuring the stuff and cryptocurrencies for financial transactions.
NCB Deputy Director General (Northern Range) Gyaneshwar Singh said the agency had been working since long on various leads to identify and dismantle the syndicate whose members were in touch with each other through social media platforms. During the previous major operation against a darknet-based drug syndicate in 2021, it had registered 47 cases and arresting 40 accused, dismantling three darknet/social media drug markets.
The agency received fresh inputs about those dealing in LSD, which were being delivered using courier and postal service channels. In order to track the perpetrators, a special investigation team under the Delhi zonal unit was constituted and intensive technical and field surveillance operations launched. The team zeroed in on a young man from Goa, a student with a Noida-based private university.
During the interrogation, he disclosed that he had been ordering LSD via a private messaging application named “Wickr”. Subsequently, a vendor operating through the same platform was identified. On May 29, the person was arrested in Delhi with 15 blots of LSD. He was trying to get the drugs couriered to a client in Kashmir. The agency seized 650 additional blots from the vendor’s residence.
