Despite anti-drug drives since May 15 last year there has been no respite in Yaba trades.
Yaba business and so-called gunfights are running parallel with the Yaba traders changing their strategies and routes.
Before the anti-drug drives started the yaba traders used to do their business by road. Now they are using air and waterways and courier services.
According to the statistics of the law enforcement agencies, drugs are entering both by land routes and waterways.
Because of heightened surveillance on roads by law enforcement agencies, smugglers are now using lesser monitored rivers to transport the drug from deep sea border areas.
In late 2015, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) discovered a new route off the Bay of Bengal being used by smugglers using fishing ships.
The elite force in separate drives recovered 4.5 to 20 hundred thousand yaba tablets between 2016 and 2017. High officials in the Coast Guard said there had been a huge rise in yaba business. In 2017 they seized 30, 53,547 yaba pills while in 2018 the number rose to 94, 45,020.
The new route is being used by different yaba smuggling syndicates, who pay drug mules to bring the contraband items to the capital by hiding those in their rectums and abdomens, according to the Airport Armed Police Battalion.
The matter came to the Airport Armed Police Battalion's attention after the arrests of 32 such people along with a total of 63,898 pills at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA) in the past four months.
Among the arrestees, six were yaba traders and the others were carriers. The arrested traders were carrying the drugs themselves at the time.
They seized some 70,600 yaba pills in the month of January alone this year, when drug dealers began to surrender in Cox's Bazar.
However, some quarters concerned said they are not optimistic about the drug trade being contained. They see a lack of coordination among the law enforcement agencies regarding the drives.
Around 3,000 traders, with 350 'godfathers', control the business across the country. They are on the lists of various government forces and the lists are updated by the Home Ministry annually.
The syndicate members in collaboration with a section of the courier service staff resorted to this mode of operation after the countrywide anti-narcotics crackdown began on May 15 last year.
On August 27, 2018, Rab arrested four people and recovered 40,000 pink pills from a courier service office in the city's Dilkusha. Smugglers find courier services convenient as they do not need own carriers in this operation, officials say.
Other than the drives, the government also gives scope to the yaba traders to surrender.
A total of 102 yaba traders surrendered to the Home Minister and the Inspector General of Police at Cox's Bazar on 16 February. They are in jail now. Discussions are going on regarding surrender of several others.
