Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) members recovered 424,000 yaba tablets during a raid at Damdamia area in Teknaf of Cox’s Bazar on Wednesday late night.
BGB Teknaf 2 Battalion Commander Lt. Col. Mohammad Faisal Hasan Khan said a special patrol team of Damdamiya BOP under Teknaf Battalion was conducting regular patrols in the Naf River late on Wednesday night.
At around 11:30 pm, the BGB patrol saw some yaba smugglers landing on the banks of Naf reaver with a boat carrying few plastic bags. The smugglers, sensing the presence of BGB men from a distance, taking advantage of the darkness, jumped into the Naf River, swam across the zero line and fled into Myanmar leaving the plastic bags behind, he added.
The patrol team later reached the spot and recovered five plastic bags left by the yaba smugglers. 4 lakh 24 thousand pieces of yaba tablets worth of Tk 12 crore 72 lakh were found inside the seized sacks, said the commander. The BGB commander said an operation was carried out for the next two hours in the area along the river bank to nab the yaba smugglers but no smugglers or their accomplices were found.
However, he said that intelligence activities of the battalion are underway to identify them. BGB sources said the recovered yaba tablets are currently stored in the Battalion Headquarters store and will be destroyed in the presence of senior officials, representatives of the Drug Control Department, local dignitaries and media personnel after taking necessary legal action.
