The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) sleuths along with the detectives of Drug Enforcement Administration of the US today grilled five Chinese nationals, arrested here with banned drugs worth Rs 40 crore, a senior NCB official said.
The state CID is probing the case and the NCB is helping it, the NCB official said.
The NCB sleuths went to CID headquarters at Bhawani Bhawan and grilled the five Chinese this afternoon, he said.
"We are trying to find out the links of these five Chinese men. Our officers are using interpreters. We are helping the state CID with information about possible link men who might have helped the Chinese," the NCB officer told PTI.
He, however, did not divulge the official findings.
The five Chinese nationals were arrested outside Kolkata railway station on June 30 after the GRP seized 197 kg of 'party drug' amphetamine worth Rs 40 crore from them, sources in the West Bengal CID said.
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Amphetamine tablets, like cocaine are known to be stimulants and the drug is gaining popularity in India, specially in rave parties, the NCB official said.
Mobile phones, a laptop, Chinese currency and train tickets were also seized from the Chinese nationals who are aged between 30 and 37 years.
They have been identified as Wang Xiao Dong, Xue Yonghui, Li Cheng, Cheng Hao and Liu Baoxian and some of their link men in different metros were also traced, the CID sources said.
The link men are located in different metropolis of India, including New Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad and had helped these Chinese nationals in moving around in the country, he said adding some of them were also located in Nepal and Bangladesh.
The CID sources said the detectives of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) of the USA is also involved in questioning Chinese nations because they apprehend the arrested Chinese nationals form part of an internationals racket to supply drugs even to their country.
The DEA sleuths have especially flown down to Kolkata for their questioning.
It was also found that the Chinese nationals had been frequently visiting various cities of the country including New Delhi and Mumbai since 2016 and had also been to Aurangabad, Allahabad, Gwalior among others, the sources added.