Mumbai : The Airport Special Cargo Commissionerate of the Customs department arrested a 62-year-old man for allegedly trying to export tramadol tablets to the US. The agency officials had previously seized a consignment of 848 strips of tramadol.
According to Customs sources, on June 6, an export consignment of foreign post was examined when the officials got suspicious during its screening. The screening of consignment resulted in the recovery of 848 strips with each strip of 10 tablets of tramadol hydrochloride tablets ol-tram tablets 100mg. The cost of seized tablets is around Rs 5 lakh.
“Tramadol was declared as apsychotropic substance and its small and commercial quantity were notified in a gazette notification dated April 26, 2018, therefore, its manufacture, possession, transportation, import and export inter-state, sale, purchase, use, consumption, storage, distribution, disposal or acquisition of is prohibited under Section 8(c) of the Narcotic Drugs & Psychotropic Substances Act. It is a scheduled ‘H’ and can only be dispensed on the prescription of a registered medical practitioner,” said a Custom officer.
A source, privy to the investigation stated that the man was apprehended from Kurla and was subsequently arrested for attempt to export tramadol. “We are probing from where he procured tramadol and who was supposed to receive it. We are also probing if the accused had been involved in the illegal export of tramadol in the past,” the official said.
According to a UN report, tramadol tablets are widely used by terrorist organisations,including Boko Haram inWest and Central Africa as a pain killer to boostfighting skills and is mostly imported from South Asia.
