Last month, over 1.5 million Taka worth Yaba tablets were seized in the border area by Bangladesh authorities, according sources in the area.
The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and Teknaf police seized 470 pieces of Yaba, 60 bottles of Phensidyl and one kilogram of ganja (Marijuana) and arrested six people, including two women, from Teknaf Upazila on June 25, according to the Officer-in-Charge of Teknaf police station.
According to the police officer, the RAB arrested Mohammad Osman (30), son of Mohammad Hossen, Jadimora of Teknaf, Obaidullah (32), son of Salim Ullah of Lazipara village in Teknaf, Md. Badiul Alam (35), son of Syed Ahmed of Ukiah upazila, and Abu Bakkar Siddque (28), son of Abdur Razzak Chowdhury of Ratnapalong union of Ukiah upazila.
A case had been registered with Teknaf police station in this connection and the seized Yaba and arrested drug traffickers were handed over to Teknaf police.
Police raided a Teknaf-bound microbus and arrested two women with 60 bottles of Phensidyl and one kilogram of ganja (Marijuana) on the same day. The traffickers were carrying Yaba, Heroin and liquor from Burma, but, Phensidyl and ganja (Marijuana) were being sent to Burma.
Over 2,000 Yaba tablets worth one million Taka were seized by Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) on the Burma-Bangladesh border on June 8, morning from a bus plying to Cox’s Bazaar from Teknaf, a border town in Bangladesh, according to the Operations Commander Major Tamin of BDR Battalion No.17 of Cox’s Bazaar.
Two persons, Omar Faruk Bappi (28), son of Abu Taher of Bazaar Para and Farzana Akter (24), wife of Feroz Ahmed of Kharangkhali vilage, were arrested and about 200 pieces of Yaba tablets were seized from Dumdum Meah by the police, said a source in Teknaf.
Heroin worth Taka 250,000 was seized by police of Cox's Bazaar police station from a Rakhine village near a fish market on February 13, at about 6 pm.
On February 13, Nasir Uddin (36) and Abul Kalam (35) were arrested by Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) at the gate of Dum Dum Meah near the BDR check post with Yaba tablets while on their way to Cox's Bazaar from Teknaf. Both of them belong to Nataung Para of Teknaf union, said a man close to the BDR.
The Narcotics Control Department (NCD) of Chittagong arrested three persons with 800 pieces of Yaba tablets from separate places in the city on February 13, according to official sources.
In Cox's Bazaar, most of the liquor, drugs including Yaba tablets and Heroin come from Burma through the border, said a trader from Cox's Bazaar.
Though the BDR, police and other agencies have been trying to stop smuggling of Heroin and Yaba tablets from Burma to Bangladesh, it has been in vain, said a local trader from Teknaf on condition of anonymity.
In Bangladesh many students are addicted to Yaba tablets and as a result the Bangladesh government has taken strong initiative to punish both sellers and users. The tablets are easy to carry because of its small size, said a medicine dealer.
Although the Bangladeshi authorities, the BDR, the police and other concerned authorities have been trying to stop the inflow of Yaba tablets to Bangladesh from Burma, yet Yaba tablets from Arakan State are smuggled to Bangladesh through land and waterways, a trader from the Teknaf border area said.
"The government is sincere in its attempt to free the country from drug abuse and border security will be strengthened further to stop illegal entry of drugs," Home Minister advocate Sahara Khatun said while talking to reporters after a function observing the “International Day against Abuse of Drugs and Illegal Smuggling” at Shilpakala Academy auditorium as chief guest on June 26.
"The government alone cannot stop the abuse of drugs; we need a united movement against it," Sahara Khatun said. “Awareness could be a vital tool to prevent drug abuse and bring back misguided youths from darkness. I don't believe imposing a law and punishment can make the society free from the curse of drug abuse. Rather, a social movement of awareness campaign and ethical lessons can prevent it more effectively."
She sought support from teachers, students, guardians and other members of the society asking them to join the movement against drug abuse to save the young generation.
Most drug traffickers, who carry the drug to Bangladesh, enter between midnight and early morning, the safest hours. Burmese drug dealers enter Bangladesh territory through the unfenced parts of the Burma border to deliver the widely-circulating pink pills known as Yaba to their Bangladeshi counterparts based in Teknaf. But now it is coming through legal border crossings (with border pass) and border trade, said a drug trafficker from Maungdaw.
Behind closed doors of hotel rooms in Teknaf, Cox’s Bazaar and Chittagong, Yaba tablets are sold in thousands, at unit price of between Taka 300 and Taka 1000. In small blue packets, the tablets are usually packed in 200 pieces per bag. From the point of delivery at Teknaf, the tablets mostly targeted at Dhaka based customers. Several hands change in the chain, until its final consumption, when a user buys a piece for Taka 2000 to Taka 2500 in Dhaka.
“The floating border population is involved in the Yaba racket,” says Abdul Hakim, director of the operations wing for the Department of Narcotics Control (DNC).
The routes until now that have been explored are via the Bangladesh border with Burma and by air from Bangkok, Thailand. The Yaba tablets are so small in size that a small lot of 500 to 1,000 pieces is easily concealable from security check. The channels in both the routes, apparently, until now, have operated so tactfully that law enforcers could hardly find any clue as to how and from where exactly the tablets are coming.
To save their business from any untoward situation, the delivery is swift and often on the streets or in local restaurants, says Anisur Rahman, who delivers Yaba mostly in Badda localities, based on telephone communication. “My job is to hand people envelopes in different locations at different times. At the end of the month I earn Taka 3,000 for it from my boss Waliur,” says Anisur, who was arrested by the Rapid Action Battalion on October 24, 2008.
In Gulshan, Banani and Baridhara, a number of small scale Yaba dealers travel in SUVs and cars, driving away right after making a delivery.
“Dhaka remains Yaba’s major market along with Chittagong’s Pachlaish, Nasirabad, Khulshi, Shugandha and similar posh areas,’ says AKM Shawkat Islam, an assistant director of DNC, based in Chittagong.
In June 2008, the DNC picked up Myanmar citizen Husson Juhar with 1,000 Yaba tablets in his possession when he boarded M/S Kashem Boarding in Chittagong’s Asadganj. Juhar was expecting a local agent who had agreed to buy the consignment from him but did not reveal his name. He confessed to the narcotics controlling authorities of smuggling Yaba into the country.
“We have sent letters to the Myanmar High Commission informing them about Husson’s offence, his subsequent arrest and that his passport has been seized. He is now serving a jail term under the Narcotics Control Act 1990,” says a DNC source in Chittagong.
Moreover, investigations reveal that seven years ago since Yaba was first introduced in the country, it is now produced locally as well in Bangladesh, according to the Department of Narcotics Control (DNC).
Bangladesh’s counter narcotics operations received a huge boost in late October 2007, when the RAB made one of the largest drug busts in the country’s history. In a raid on a Dhaka office the RAB seized about 130,000 Yaba tablets, with a street value of more than $1 million, and large amounts of drug-making equipment and raw materials. RAB officers arrested a man suspected of being a leading drug baron. One immediate result of the raid was to send the street price of Yaba from 200 to 300 Taka a tablet to 700 Taka ($10), or more, according to a report of state department, USA.
Drugs seized by the department from January through September 2006 (latest statistics) are as follows: 18 kg of heroin (compared to 16.3 kg in all of 2006 and 20.2 kg in 2005); 1,373 kg of marijuana (compared to 1,345 kg in 2006 and 1,589 kg in 2005); more than 20,000 bottles of Phensidyl, a codeine-based, highly addictive cough syrup produced in India; 215 ampoules of Pethedine, an injectable opiate with medical application as an anesthetic; and 5,652 tablets of Yaba. The RAB reported seizing nearly 133,000 tablets of Yaba in 2007 through October, almost all of which came from the one Dhaka raid, compared to about 5,000 tablets in all of 2006 and less than 1,000 tablets in 2005. Heroin seizures by RAB through October 2007 were 19.8 kg, compared to 38.5 kg in 2006 and 341 kg in 2005. More than 80,000 bottles of Phensidyl were seized through October, compared to nearly 190,000 bottles in 2006 and about 120,000 bottles in 2005, the report stated.
