Acting on a tip-off about drugs being smuggled through the sea from Nagapattinam to Sri Lanka, officials of the Narcotics Control Bureau(NCB) seized mescaline worth ₹6 crore and arrested three persons on late Sunday.
The police said the intelligence unit received information late on Saturday about a planned consignment being moved through the coastal stretch. A team rushed to Velankanni in Nagapattinam district and kept a watch near the Velankanni Basilica. The officials found three men standing in a suspicious manner at a car parking area belonging to the Basilica and detained them for questioning.
A subsequent search revealed that the three were in possession of 2 kg of mescaline, a synthetic hallucinogenic drug, allegedly meant to be smuggled by boat to Sri Lanka. The seized contraband is estimated to be worth ₹6 crore in the international market, the police said.
Those arrested were identified as Ravichandran, 40, of Puthiya Nambiyar Nagar, also the West district secretary of Hindu Makkal Katchi,; Anandharaj, 33, of the fishermen’s colony in the tsunami rehabilitation settlement at Poompuhar in Mayiladuthurai district; and Murugan alias Kanjinathan, 31 , of Thummachi Street, Pushpavanam, near Vedaranyam.
