The Times of India and others are starting to wonder where, if anywhere, the investigation by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) into the much-vaunted seizure of 200 kilograms of cocaine earlier this month at a Mumbai port is going. While five people have been detained no arrests have yet been made after the record bust on the 3rd of June.
Specific questions and issues that are being raised include the following:
* Senior officials within the NCB have raised the possibility that the drug cartel behind the shipment were tipped off by NCB insiders.
* While the NCB would normally wait for the haul to leave the container ship and reach customs officials before swooping on those who had come to pick up the consignment, in this case they went in early, giving the drug dealers more of a chance to get away.
* The Delhi unit of the NCB was in charge of the operation with the Mumbai team being kept out of the loop. Further, it was decided a few days after the bust that the superintendent of the Mumbai NCB was to be transferred elsewhere.
* What was the final destination of the shipment? Spain is considered likely but this has not been confirmed by the NCB.
* With the consignment said to have been monitored for over three weeks since it left Ecuador, it is curious why no substantial progress in the investigation seems to have been made.
UPDATE [15 June]: Three men have now been arrested. Omprakash Nogaja, Umesh Bangur and Vijay Thorne have been remanded in NCB custody until the 28th of June. The NCB suspects the three men knew about the shipment and will interrogate them to find out its destination.