NCB busts pan-India drug network that used darknet, cryptocurrency; 6 held, largest haul in 2 decades

The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on June 6, 2023, claimed to have busted a pan India drugs trafficking network operating on the dark web with the largest ever seizure of 15,000 LSD Slots (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide) in one operation and arrest of six people who are students and youngsters.

The agency also seized 2.5 kg of imported marijuana and RS 4.6 lakhs in cash at the instance of the suspects.

LSD is a synthetic chemical-based drug, and it is categorized as a hallucinogen.

The network, which operated in the darknet and used cryptocurrencies for payments, was spread across Poland, the Netherlands, the US, and several states of India, notably in Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Uttar Pradesh.

The darknet is an encrypted portion of the internet that is not indexed

Gyaneshwar Singh, the Deputy Director General of the NCB Northern Range, said this was the largest-ever seizure of LSD blots in the country in a single operation. Till now, the highest seizure of LSD was 5000 blots by the Karnataka Police in 2021 and the Kolkata NCB in a single operation.

According to Singh, the gang used cryptocurrencies and the darknet, adding that delivery was done through courier services.  All the dealings were virtual. The suspects used private messaging apps to communicate.

Addressing a press briefing, Singh said, “We have arrested six persons in two cases and seized 15,000 blots of LSD Drug. The commercial quantity of this drug is 0.1 grams. It is a very synthetic drug and is very dangerous.”  The NCB Officials said that the seizure of 15,000 blots is 2,500 times the commercial quantity.

“LSD is very easy to smuggle and almost difficult to trace. A commercial quantity is made up of five to six blots, the NCB has seized 15,000 blots, and six people have been arrested. There has been not such a huge seizure in the last several years.

“India is slowly becoming a big consumer of LSD which is dangerous,” said Gyaneshwar Singh.

The darknet is an encrypted portion of the internet that is not indexed by search engines such as Google, Yahoo etc. It is operational and accessible through The Onion Reuter (TOR) and I2P (invisible to Protect). It is a virtual equivalent of a Black Market.

It is used by activists and revolutionaries to organize themselves without fearing to give away their position to the regimes and governments they oppose. The darknet is also used by terrorists to provide fellow information to the terrorists, recruit and radicalise, along with purchasing explosives, and weapons, using virtual currencies such as Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies.

Criminals looking forward to protecting their identities in order to evade detection and capture are drawn to this aspect of the darknet. Examples of darknet include Silk Road Marketplace.

In order to counter it,  law enforcement agencies need to use sophisticated technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

There must be a specified regulation on the amount of data collected by companies and their automatic deletion after a stipulated amount of time can increase the efficiency of cyber-systems to secure data and prevent such incidents in the future to a large extent. Sharing of intelligence data across different sectors, agencies, and organisations.

The Information Technology Act 2000 deals with cybercrime and comes under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.  With changing times, India needs a code of criminal procedure dealing with cybercrime that will come under the Ministry of Home Affairs which deals with policing issues.

Also, there is a need for police training in changing cyber trends which are dedicated only to cybercrime rather than transferred to other police units.