New Delhi, Sep 23 (IANS): Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) carried out raids in eight cities, including New Delhi and Noida, in wake of the seizure of 2,988.22 kilogramme heroin from Gujarat's Mundra port, and arrested eight people, including four Afghanistan nationals and one Uzbek national, from across the country.

The agency stated that immediate follow-up operations were carried out in New Delhi, Noida, Chennai, Coimbatore, Ahmedabad, Mandvi, Gandhidham, and Vijayawada.

"This led to recovery of 16.1 kg of heroin from a godown in Delhi, 10.2 kgs powder suspected to be cocaine and 11 kgs of substance suspected to be heroin from a residential place in Noida," it said.

The three Indians arrested in the case so far include the holders of the Import Export Code (IEC), which was used to import the consignment. M. Sudhakar and his wife Durga Vaishali, who allegedly ran Vijayawada-registered Aashi Trading Company which had imported heroin declaring the consignment as 'talc stones', were arrested from Chennai.

The agency said the heroin was concealed in jumbo bags said to contain unprocessed talc powder. The narcotic was placed in the lower layers of the bags, which had talc stones on the top to avoid detection.

Resultantly, the heroin had to be painstakingly separated from the talc stones.

Two days ago, the Enforcement Directorate has registered a money laundering case in a drug trafficking case.

About the operation, a senior DRI officer stated that specific intelligence was developed by them that a consignment, imported by Aashi Trading Company, Vijaywada and declared as semi-processed talc stones, originating from Afghanistan and shipped from Iran's Bandar Abbas Port, to Mundra is suspected to contain narcotics.

These drugs originated from Afghanistan.

Accordingly, officers of DRI detained the consignment --two containers, 40 tonnes -- for examination under the provisions of Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic substance Act.

The examination was conducted in presence of experts from Forensics Science Lab, Gandhinagar.

During examination, suspected narcotics drugs were recovered from both the containers. FSL conducted tests and confirmed the presence of heroin.

"Accordingly, 1,999.579 kg recovered from the first container and 988.64 kg recovered from the second container, totalling 2,988.219 kg, were seized under the provisions of NDPS Act, 1985," the DRI had stated.