Yaba Smuggling: Rab arrests nine gang members

The Rapid Action Battalion on Friday arrested nine members, including five Myanmar nationals, of a yaba smuggling gang in Cox's Bazar.

The elite force seized 5,00,000 pieces of yaba from the arrestees.

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The gang had been using fish trade as a cover for yaba smuggling. Some Myanmar nationals, who fled the country and had been living in Bangladesh as refugees, were also involved in the crime, it said.

Tipped off, a team of Rab-7, led by its Commanding Officer Lt Col Miftah Uddin Ahmed, chased a trawler deep in the Bay of Bengal around 5:00pm on Friday and arrested eight people with 4,50,000 yaba tablets, Maj Ruhul Amin, company commander of Rab-7 Cox's Bazar camp, told a press conference at the camp yesterday.

The team also seized the trawler.

Following information gleaned from the arrestees, Rab detained “owner of the yaba and the trawler” Sultan Ahmed along with 50,000 tablets at his house in Cox's Bazar town, Maj Ruhul added.

The five Myanmar nationals are Habibullah, Zahid Hossain, Abu Hamid, Jahangir and Osman Gani. Habibullah, Zahid and Hamid lived at Kutupalong camp in Ukhiya while Jahangir and Osman are from Myanmar's Maungdaw. Three other arrestees are Mizanur Rahman of Khagrachhari, trawler driver Abdur Rauf of Laxmipur and Abdur Razzak Miah of Rangpur.

Maj Ruhul said Sultan had been using fish trade as a cover for yaba smuggling. He used two trawlers, owned by his son-in-law, for smuggling.

The arrestees were being interrogated, he added.