Members of the Rapid Action Battalion seized the “biggest ever” yaba consignment from a fishing trawler at outer anchorage of Chittagong port.
Members of the elite force seized 1,000,000 yaba pills worth around Tk40 crore and arrested eight people, including a Myanmar citizen, during the drive.
The arrestees were Md Abdus Salam Mazi, 55, Md Safiq, 35, Abdur Rahim Barma, 30, Md Kamal, 42, Joynal Abedin, 25, Md Sayed Alam, 30, Md Rabiul Alam, 26, and Md Islam Mamun, 27. Of them, Kamal is a citizen of Myanmar.
“Acting on a tip-off, a team of RAB 7 led by its Commanding Officer Lieutenant Colonel Mifta Uddin Ahmed conducted a drive around 9pm on Tuesday and seized a fishing trawler which was coming from Myanmar”, said Lieutenant Colonel Mifta Uddin Ahmed at a press briefing at RAB 7 headquarters.
“Later, searching the fishing trawler, RAB recovered the huge amount of contraband yaba tablets that were concealed in a cold storage of the boat and arrested Md Abdus Salam, Safiq, Abdur Rahim and Md Kamal,” said Mifta.
He said: “With the latest yaba seizure, RAB 7 recovered a total of 4, 271,000 yaba pills in one year from January 1, 2015 to January 6 this year”.
Mifta said during preliminary interrogation on the boat, the four told RAB personnel the names of their associates of the drug smuggling racket.
Later, RAB personnel conducted a drive at Kolatoli intersection of Cox’s Bazar and arrested Joynal, Alam, and Rabiul from there while Mamun was held from Bahaddarhat area in the city.
“Joynal is the owner of the huge yaba consignment which were smuggled from Myanmar while Sayed Alam is the owner of the fishing boat”, added the RAB 7 chief.
