Three persons were arrested after Yaba tablets worth around Rs 2 crore were seized from them in Madhyamgram on Wednesday.

Acting on a tip-off customs department officers apprehended two people from Madhyamgram and recovered around 28,000 Yaba tablets. Both of them were arrested. Later, 8000 more tablets were seized from another place and one more person was arrested.

“The total value of the seized Yaba tablets is around Rs 2 crore. Also known as madness drug, crazy medicine and Nazi speed, these are psychotropic substances prohibited under the NDPS Act 1985,” said an official.

A mixture of methamphetamine and caffeine and sold as red or pink pills, Yaba originated in Myanmar and entered the Bangladesh black market in early 2000 and gained instant popularity due to the paucity of such stimulants locally. The fact that it was cheap also helped.

This is, however, not the first time that such drugs were seized from the city and its outskirts.

In August this year, Heroin and Amphetamine tablets worth ₹55 crore in the international market were seized by the special task force of the Kolkata Police in West Bengal’s Malda district. Four drug peddlers, two of whom are from Manipur and Bihar, were arrested. A consignment was also seized in Kolkata in July 2020.

Smuggling of Yaba tablets has shot up since 2019 across the porous Indo-Bangladesh border in south Bengal, after the Border Security Force (BSF) cracked down on cattle smuggling.