Smuggling Corridor: From beedis to arms for Naxals, TN ports become abuzz amid Lanka crisis

While the smuggling racket between Sri Lanka and India is nothing new, estimates reveal that it has gone up five-fold in the past couple of months.

New Delhi, July 20: The National Investigation Agency today conducted a search at Trichy (Tiruchirappalli) in Tamil Nadu. The searches were carried out at a special camp which lodges foreigners with criminal records.

The camp houses over 100 foreigners from Sri Lanka, Bulgaria, Russia, United Kingdom, Bangladesh and Kenya. It was from this camp that last year a Bulgarian national had managed to escape. In 2019 a Nigerian national lodged at this camp too had escaped.

Since the outbreak of the crisis in Sri Lanka, several agencies have kept a close watch on the activities along the border. With the ongoing crisis in the neighbouring country, the smuggling corridor which has been active for several years now has once again come under the close radar of the agencies.

Off late the number of incidents of smuggling, be it of drugs or gold, has gone up. An Intelligence Bureau official tells OneIndia that it is the same route that these smugglers are using which has been operation for several years now. The scanning of these routes have become multi-fold now in the wake of the ongoing Sri Lanka crisis, the recent bombings and also gold smuggling activity witnessing a rise.

In May, the customs officials had found that smuggling in a kilogram of gold into India fetched Rs 6 lakh. With money becoming scarce in the island nation, it is anticipating that such illegal activity would rise.

While the smuggling racket between Sri Lanka and India is nothing new, estimates by the agencies show that it has gone up five-fold in the past couple of months. In addition to gold being smuggled, the route has also witnessed marijuana being brought in. The menace of smuggling the star tortoise is also nothing new.

The probe revealed that the Indian Star Tortoise (Geochelone elegans) is a species native to India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. This is the most trafficked tortoise species in the world. These tortoises are collected and smuggled into East and Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, Malaysia and Hong Kong. The Chennai airport has been the smuggling hub for this. Between 2021 and 2022, India has seized around 5,000 star tortoises, while in Sri Lanka the number was at 5,487.

Apart from the incidents of smuggling, the agencies had recently signaled that the LTTE would try and revive itself. In January a Sri Lankan national, Letchumanan Mary Franciska (50) was arrested from the Chennai Airport. Using the LPG connection, she got herself an Indian passport and a voter ID as well. She was arrested based on a tip-off when she was trying to fly into Bengaluru. The case was transferred to the NIA when the probe against her revealed that she was in touch with the then active cadres of the LTTE.

If one were to look at this route historically then it all began with the Sri Lankans smuggling opium. They would trade the opium for beedis from India. The landing point has always been the Kodikkarai fishing port in Tamil Nadu and over the years the opium was replaced with arms and ammunition.

The official cited above said that with the Chinese involvement in Sri Lanka going up over the years, they have been helping the smugglers bring in the arms and then move it into northern Kerala which has been witnessing signs of naxalite activity.

The NIA raids that took place are important considering it helps keep a tab on foreigners who have entered illegally into India. This is also important in the wake of enhanced Chinese activity, and an older Intelligence Bureau report stating that there has been enhanced Chinese activity and a rough estimate shows that over 170 Chinese nationals have settled in the rural parts of Tamil Nadu alone.