Cocaine detected in another barrel

Department of Narcotics Control (DNC) in its laboratory test has found presence of liquid cocaine in another barrel of the imported sunflower oil consignment at Chittagong Port.

On an order of a Chittagong court on September 6, Detective Branch (DB) of Chittagong Metropolitan Police (CMP) had sent the sample from all 107 barrels to the laboratory of the department in the capital.

Laboratory test at that time had detected cocaine in barrel 96 and in an observation letter sent to the IO, the department also had mentioned the possibility of cocaine in barrel 59, said the Chief Chemical Officer Dulal Krisna Saha of DNC.

“On court orders for retest, the IO again sent the sample collected from 59 no. barrel on September 7. Cocaine was detected in test and the report has been sent to the IO”, he added.  

On May 8, the barrels of sunflower arrived at Chittagong port from Bolivia via Uruguay in a container. Customs intelligence officials sealed off the container on June 6 after information from police.

On June 8, the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate sent the samples to Drug Testing Laboratory and Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (BCSIR) in Dhaka. The two labs detected presence of liquid cocaine in the sample of barrel No.96.

Police filed a case with Bandar police station in this connection on June 27.

On July 8, a Chittagong court ordered the DB of CMP to send the samples of sunflower oil of all the 107 barrels to three laboratories of three departments including Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Department of Narcotics Control (DNC) and the Armed Forces Food and Drug laboratory in Dhaka.

The two test result from CID and DNC also found presence of liquid cocaine in the barrel No. 96, said court sources.

Six persons have so far been arrested in the case.

The arrestees are Golam Mostafa Sohel, a manager of Prime Hatchery, a sister concern of Khatunganj based importing firm Khan Jahan Ali Ltd, his cousin Mehedi Alam, an official of a security company, Cosco Shipping Agency’s Manager A K Azad, Mondol Group’s Commercial Executive Atiqur Rahman, real estate company official Mostafa Kamal and a Clearing and Forwarding(C&F) agent firm official Saiful Islam.