Busted: Drug officers getting high on own supply
Narcotics were packed into rice sacks that made it through Islamabad checks.
ISLAMABAD:
The country’s premier drug control agency has busted a plot by its own officers to smuggle more than three tons of hashish out of the country.
The authorities confiscated 3.1 metric tons of the drug at the Karachi port. The hashish was stored in 200 bags of rice which had been sealed and cleared for export by the Anti-Narcotics Force officials at the Islamabad dry port. The consignment was destined for west Africa.
The ANF suspects that the consignment was destined for European countries through Guinea Bissau, a generally preferred trans-shipment destination for drugs. Initial evidence points to the collusion of an ANF inspector and a Pakistan Customs deputy collector, both of whom are posted at the Islamabad dry port. Senior officers at the port who did not want to be named, said that they would bring the culprits to justice.
The incident has shocked the bureaucratic ranks with Federal Bureau for Revenue Chairman Salman Siddique ordering a committee to get to the bottom of the matter.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 11th, 2011.
The country’s premier drug control agency has busted a plot by its own officers to smuggle more than three tons of hashish out of the country.
The authorities confiscated 3.1 metric tons of the drug at the Karachi port. The hashish was stored in 200 bags of rice which had been sealed and cleared for export by the Anti-Narcotics Force officials at the Islamabad dry port. The consignment was destined for west Africa.
The ANF suspects that the consignment was destined for European countries through Guinea Bissau, a generally preferred trans-shipment destination for drugs. Initial evidence points to the collusion of an ANF inspector and a Pakistan Customs deputy collector, both of whom are posted at the Islamabad dry port. Senior officers at the port who did not want to be named, said that they would bring the culprits to justice.
The incident has shocked the bureaucratic ranks with Federal Bureau for Revenue Chairman Salman Siddique ordering a committee to get to the bottom of the matter.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 11th, 2011.