TEKNAF: Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) members have seized 70,000 Yaba tablets, worth Taka 21 million and clutched two Burmese smugglers from the Naf River in the Teknaf Upazila of Cox’s Bazar district , according to a BGB official here the other day.
“The two arrested men were identified as Mohamed Rafique (18), son of Mohamed Alam and Abdul Amin (30), son of Kalu Mia. Both come from Prangpru village in Maungdaw Township.”
Lt Col Abu Zar-Al- Zahid, Commanding Officer (CO) of BGB 42 Battalion said that following a tip-off a BGB patrol team carried out an operation in Naitang Para (neighbourhood) near the Teknaf ice factory and challenged the duo when they landed in a small boat at about 6am.
Later, the BGB personnel seized 70,000 Yaba tablets from the two and arrested them. The arrested men will be charged and sent to Teknaf Police Station the commanding officer said.
Yaba tablets regularly enter the country at the border with Myanmar before being taken to other destinations in Bangladesh, such as Dhaka and Chittagong according to police.
Last year, on 15th September members of the Bangladesh Navy seized 220,000 Yaba tablets worth Tk 150 million, according to the navy.
Though the BGB, the police, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), naval forces and coast guards have long been trying to stop smuggling of yaba from Burma to Bangladeshi border towns such as Teknaf and Cox’s Bazar, they have had little success according to a businessman from Teknaf who wished to remain anonymous.
