Mumbai: The seizure of 290 kg of the drug pseudo-ephedrine, used in preparation of narcotic amphetamine, was one of the biggest in the country and was potentially the first lot being manufactured to be sent to Australia, a senior Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) official said today.

The seizure made from a farmhouse in the Murbad area of neighbouring Thane could have been used to prepare at least 210 kg of ATS (amphetamine type substance), a narcotic which has a huge market in the US, Japan and Australia, Director General of the NCB K C Verma said here.

"We have been following the activities of some people who were trying to send the narcotic to Australia for the past six to seven months. The activity in the famhouse of preparing pseudo-ephedrine was going on in the recent months and was possibly the first lot to be sent abroad," Verma said.

Pseudo-ephderine is a pre-cursor drug, a substance used in the chemical preparation of another synthetic chemical, and in this case is used for manufacturing amphetamines, known among drug users as "ice" and sells at USD 187 per gram in countries like Japan.

Five persons, including three foreign nationals and two Indians, were arrested by the NCB yesterday for running the "kitchen laboratory" to obtain pseudo-ephedrine from pharmaceutical products like medicines for cough and cold.
The prime accused in the case is one Shaikh Kader Sahib Tajuddin, a Singaporean national, who was allegedly planning the operation for some time.

He had brought Mexican Rafael Garcia and Singaporean Rosli Bin Mohammed to the country for their expertise in extracting pseudo-ephderine from pharmaceuticals, NCB officials said.

Source : PTI