Huge quantities of Yaba tablets are still being smuggled into Bangladesh by dealers. The Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) recovered 6 lakh 90 thousand pieces of Burmese Yaba worth Tk 20 crores 70 lakh during two separate raids in Gorjanbania area near Myanmar border at Cox's Bazar's Ukhiya upazila.
Five people have also been arrested in this regard, said Lt Col Md Mehedi Hasan Kabir, commander of BGB's Cox's Bazar 34 Battalion, said according to a press release on Saturday.
Officials of the Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB) said they have seized 560,1025 pieces of yaba pills and 33.55 kg crystal myth since January to April 22 and arrested 434 smugglers.
BGB recovered two lakh pieces of Burmese Yaba
worth Tk 6 crores during a drive at Ukhiya Upazila in Cox's Bazar, said a BGB media release on January 15.
BGB recovered 170,000 pieces of Burmese Yaba, with a street value of Tk 5.1 crore, in separate drives at Ukhiya Upazila in Cox's Bazar on March 11. BGB on Saturday claimed to have nabbed a Myanmar national with 80,000 pieces of Yaba worth Tk 2.40 crore in Cox's Bazar on April 15. The detainee has been identified as Md Kamal Hossain, 22.
Acting on a tip-off, two BGB patrol teams took strategic positions in the River Naf off the coast of Jaliardwip and intercepted a boat at 1:00am carrying two drug peddlers.
The teams managed to arrest one of the drug smugglers and recovered the banned narcotics from him, BGB said in a statement.
Raids on fishing boats on the Naff river-- which divides Bangladesh and Myanmar, countries that share a 271-km boundary -- have reaped a massive haul of yaba pills, which is a rage among Bangladeshi youth. Demand for Yaba tablets go up ten times in the country during the Eid festival, knowledgeable sources said. The dealers are now busy stocking these drugs to meet the growing demand as an estimated five million Bangladeshis, particularly youths, are drug addicts.
The craze for Yaba among the youth is the biggest problem in Bangladesh. It is estimated that there are about 4.6 million regular users of Yaba in Bangladesh and the number is increasing alarmingly every day. Stopping Yaba from entering Bangladesh now seems almost impossible as shootouts, mass surrenders of narcotics smugglers to police or strengthened surveillance on Cox's Bazar Marine Drive could not stop the smuggling of the crazy pill from Myanmar.
Despite the country's provision of death penalty as the highest punishment for drug offences, contraband Yaba consignments sneak through the Bangladesh-Myanmar border and they are being seized every day.
Bangladesh is struggling to cope with a surging drug epidemic, at the heart of which is a wildly popular methamphetamine drug known as Yaba. A synthetic stimulant Yaba typically comes in the form of colourful, candy-like tablets.
The main ingredient in producing Yaba is chemical amphetamine, which is smuggled from China and Thailand to Myanmar, which hosts the largest number of clandestine Yaba laboratories.
A massive surge in the Yaba trade pushed the Bangladesh government to pass the Narcotics Control Bill in October 2018 with a provision of a death sentence or life-term imprisonment as punishment for drug crimes. An anti-narcotics crackdown followed which left nearly 519 people killed in gunfights, with over one lakh arrested for their alleged involvement with the narcotics trade, as of June 2020. Yet, the inflow of Yaba in Bangladesh continues.
