NCB Shifts Focus to Drug Kingpins Over Couriers

Guwahati: The Narcotics Control Bureau is hunting big game. Director General Anurag Garg announced on Monday that the agency is shifting its focus from low-level street couriers to the masterminds running transnational drug networks. Officials identified several major players operating across borders and are currently working to bring them to justice.

Garg spoke during a BRICS anti-drug meeting in Guwahati. He noted that Myanmar remains a primary source for heroin and methamphetamine entering India through the Northeast. The agency is now moving to dismantle these syndicates at the source. "Rather than catching the petty couriers who carry it across the border, we are now concentrating on the kingpins. We have identified certain people on both sides, and the process to bring them in to face justice is on," Garg said.

The bureau proved its new strategy in May. Agents tracked and arrested a key Myanmar-based trafficker hiding in New Delhi. To keep the pressure on, the NCB is also beefing up state-level task forces to act as the frontline defense. They have opened new zonal and regional offices across the Northeast to tighten enforcement, a move the agency claims is already driving up seizure numbers.