High-value drugs like cocaine now being smuggled more through air route: DRI

Seizures made by the Mumbai unit of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) have indicated that narcotics-trafficking syndicates have begun preferring the air route to smuggle high-value contraband like cocaine. From April 2024 to March 2025, the Mumbai unit, in 12 separate cases, seized over around 18 kg of foreign-origin cocaine estimated to be worth around ₹180 crore.

All the cases involved smuggling bids by passengers using the air route, often employing unique concealment methods. This modus operandi marked a departure from the two preceding years when a significant part of the seizures came from cocaine smuggled by the sea route, which was concealed primarily in trade containers.

The DRI’s seizure data reveals that there was a sharp drop in cocaine smuggling bids from April 2024 to March 2025 compared to the preceding two years. While 18 kilos of cocaine worth around ₹180 crore was seized during 2024-2025, the seizures during 2023-24 and 2022-23 were considerably more: approximately 63.5 kg worth around ₹638 crore in 18 cases in 2023-24, and around 82.31 kg worth approximately 820.1 crore in 11 cases in 2022-23.

The 2024-25 seizures were, however, larger than the corresponding figures for 2020-21 and 2021-22, the Covid-19 pandemic years when there were travel restrictions. In 2020-21 and 2021-22, the DRI had seized cocaine weighing 4.94 kg (worth ₹29.75 crore) and 6.19 kg (worth ₹46.81 crore) respectively.

The seizures from the non-air route were significant: around 23 kg of cocaine worth around ₹230 crore during 2023-24 and around 59 kg worth ₹590 crore in 2022-23. Interestingly, the use of non-air route, which refers to mainly the sea route, was missing entirely during 2024-2025, DRI data revealed.

Syndicates prefer air route

Plant-based narcotics like cocaine are mostly smuggled into Maharashtra from abroad while synthetic drugs are largely manufactured locally. Cocaine is usually trafficked into the state from South America via African or Gulf countries, DRI sources said. When asked about the exclusive use of the air route in cocaine-smuggling cases in 2024-2025, an agency source said, “The trend in India and globally is to use the air route and passengers (known as carriers) to smuggle cocaine and avoid the sea route using containers. This has been happening increasingly over the past three to four years.”

A source said that drug trafficking through the air route had become a potent method for smugglers due to the speed and increasing volume of international air traffic. “Drugs are often concealed in luggage, courier packages or ingested by carriers who are known as mules,” he said.

The source said that there were several reasons for the switch to the air route. “Thanks to increased interception of cocaine consignments by the sea route over the last few years, syndicates have probably become wary, as each such interception is a huge financial loss and exposes the supply network,” he said. “In comparison, smugglers can employ several carriers via the air route at a maximum fee of USD 1,000 per trip to India. Also, it is possible for the carriers to evade the scanner at airports if there is no specific intelligence.”

The source added that air passengers usually carried small quantities of narcotics, ranging from a few grams to a few kg. Thus, while such a mode of smuggling could bring down the total worth of the contraband, the interception would not be too big a financial hit for the trafficking syndicate, which was another reason for their preferring the air route.

DRI sources said that the agency had intensified its intelligence-gathering mechanism to detect all possible routes of cocaine and other narcotics smuggling to ensure that no consignment escaped its scanner, whether brought in via air, land or sea.

Air route poses stiff challenges

The number of cases involving cocaine-smuggling by air route, particularly using mules, has risen year on year recently, presenting significant challenges to Indian law enforcement agencies. DRI sources said that a significant proportion of offenders were foreign nationals, and most of the smuggling involved body concealment of narcotics.

“This method often evades detection through standard airport screening methods, posing a considerable challenge for enforcement agencies,” said a source. “However, DRI units have been successful in profiling and identifying passengers who conceal cocaine in their bodies. Baggage concealment remains the second-most prevalent form of smuggling.”

India, with its strategic geographic location and vast borders, faces significant challenges in combating the trafficking and abuse of narcotic substances, the sources said, adding that as the global drug trade evolved, so did the methods and routes used by traffickers. “The country’s robust economy and burgeoning youth population targeted as a lucrative market by the drug syndicates further complicates the efforts in controlling the drug menace,” the DRI source said.

Sea route for big consignments

In the preceding two years, the DRI’s seizures of cocaine substantially pertained to drug trafficking via the sea route. “The chief characteristic of the sea route or the cargo container route is that it facilitates the bulk smuggling of narcotics, which are well concealed within the declared trade cargo,” said another DRI source.

Among the many examples of sea-based seizures of cocaine and heroin during 2022-23, the DRI, on October 6, 2022, intercepted a shipping container at the busy Nhava Sheva port in Navi Mumbai. The container appeared to be normal, one among several carrying imported goods. Its declared cargo was a consignment of green apples and pears from South Africa. But closer scrutiny revealed that inside the boxes were 50 one-kg bricks of high-quality cocaine. In this, the largest seizure in recent years, the value of the drug was a whopping ₹502 crore in the international market.

Weeks earlier, on September 30, DRI officials had intercepted another imported consignment at the same Nhava Sheva port—of Valencia oranges that had arrived in a shipping container from South Africa. A thorough examination of the consignment yielded nine kg of high-purity cocaine worth around ₹90 crore and 198 kg of the synthetic narcotic methamphetamine worth ₹1,476 crore.