Six Myanmarese nationals have been arrested and ketamine worth US$42 million were sized from a vessel in the Indian Ocean near the Nicobar Islands.
The Indian coast guard arrested the Myanmarese national on Wednesday.
The 1,160kg drug haul came after coast guard aircraft spotted the boat, which had its lights off, at Exclusive Economic Zone, cna reported.
Defence ministry in a statement said the boat’s crew did not respond to radio calls and the coast guard eventually boarded it, with officials finding “57 gunny bundles of suspicious substance” on Friday.
“Preliminary analysis … revealed that the suspicious substance was ketamine and there were 1,160 packets of 1kg each onboard the vessel,” the ministry added.
The six Myanmarese nationals were taken to Port Blair, the capital of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where they were questioned by investigators.
They claimed they left Myanmar on Sep 14 and were due to rendezvous with another boat “operating near the Thailand-Malaysia maritime border line” on Saturday, the statement said.