MD seizure by DRI sees a three-fold rise in 2022-23

MUMBAI: There was an alarming threefold rise in the quantity of Mephedrone, also known as MD, seized by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) in 2022-23 compared to the seizures made two years earlier, in 2020–2021. While the agency seized 218.25 kg of the banned synthetic stimulant in 2020-21, it intercepted 791.25 kg of the psychotropic substance in 2022-23 in the country.

Mephedrone was notified as a psychotropic substance under the NDPS Act, 1985, via a notification on February 5, 2015, by the Centre. The rise, of around 362.54%, reflected the increasing use of synthetic drugs in India and the misuse of industrial units in the making of such drugs, agency sources said.

“The rising demand for synthetic drugs and the presence of a strong pharmaceutical manufacturing infrastructure make the threat of clandestine manufacturing of such drugs quite significant,” a DRI source said.

In 2019-2020, amid COVID-19 pandemic-induced restricted travel, the seizure of Mephedrone was only 57.69 kg, the sources said. There was no seizure of mephedrone in 2021-2022, though sources did not refer to any reason for the same.

“DRI has been active in tracking and cracking down on such clandestine factories and laboratories,” the source said. The agency busted a Mephedrone-making factory in Yamunanagar, Haryana, and two such units in Hyderabad, Telangana. In October 2023, the DRI also busted an alleged syndicate involved in the manufacturing/storage of liquid Mephedrone in a chemical unit in production/storage of liquid mephedrone in Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, earlier known as Aurangabad, seizing 107 litres of it, worth ?160 crore in the grey market.

The DRI arrested two accused persons including the factory owner and a warehouse manager as part of its operation in Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar. The agency’s operation had resulted in the seizure of more than 400 crores of narcotic substances, including the liquid mephedrone’s consignment, and the detection of two alleged clandestine laboratories involved in the making of the latter, sources said.

“Busting of a factory or a clandestine laboratory manufacturing narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances is significant as it lends a body blow to the entire supply chain involved in the making and distribution of the contraband,” one of the sources said. The spurt in the use of synthetic psychotropic substances, including Mephedrone, is a wider, global phenomenon over the past several years, the sources said.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which track publishes the World Drug Report each year to track trends regarding the demand-supply and trafficking of narcotics, found in 2023 that “one in every 17 persons aged 15-64 in the world had used a drug in 2021, 23% more than a decade earlier, the sources said.