Four arrested as drone heroin smuggling gang busted on Punjab border

A gang using drones to smuggle heroin across the Punjab border has been dismantled and four of its members arrested, authorities announced, capping a week of intensive counter-narcotics operations in the region.

The latest seizure is the fourth major cross-border recovery in seven days by the Counter Intelligence unit in Amritsar. Earlier operations during the same period netted 27 kg, 10 kg and 17 kg of heroin respectively, bringing the cumulative total recovered across all four operations to 74 kg.

The use of drones to ferry narcotics across the international border has become an increasingly prominent challenge for security forces in Punjab, with the successive seizures highlighting both the scale of the smuggling network and the pressure being applied on it.