More than 2.5kg of heroin worth over Rs 10.4 crore in the grey drug market was seized on Sunday.
An official of the customs unit in Kolkata that seized the consignment said they had received specific information that a man who stays in Teghoria in northeast Kolkata had nearly 1kg of heroin hidden in his house.
“We conducted a raid and found plastic bags filled with powder. A test confirmed that the powder was heroin,” said a senior officer of the Kolkata commissionerate of customs (preventive).
During questioning the man revealed that his associate who stays in Kidderpore in southwest Kolkata also had a large quantity of heroin hidden in his house.
A second team raided the Kidderpore address and found more than 1.5kg of heroin and arrested the other man. The duo has been booked under the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. They were later produced at the Alipore court.
They have been sent to judicial custody.
“A preliminary investigation suggested that they were part of a drugs supply racket active in the city,” an officer said. According to the officer, the arrested men have told them that the heroin was supposed to be peddled across the city and its outskirts.
The men used to be in touch with people who frequent nightclubs and discotheques across the city.
“We have seized their phones and have found that they had established a well-linked network across the city. We are trying to arrest the other members of this drug racket,” the officer said.
Heroin is an opioid derived from the opium poppy flower. It gets rapidly absorbed into the brain making it highly addictive, a senior officer of the Narcotics Control Bureau said.