Karnataka / B'luru man held for ordering 750 ecstasy pills online from Germany

Bengaluru: A man who had allegedly procured 750 ecstasy pills online from Germany in July this year, was arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau in Bengaluru on Saturday.

He had been at large after the recovery of a huge cache of MDMA pills, commonly known as ecstasy, from the Foreign Post Office here on July 31, an NCB statement said.

The man has been identified as Rahman K, it said, but did not give details of his arrest. The NCB said that Rahman, a commerce graduate, had been selling MDMA and other party drugs among students of his college and nearby institutions.

He had placed the order for MDMA pills online in exchange for Bitcoins, the Narcotics Control Bureau said.

MDMA (methylenedioxy-methamphetamine) is a party drug that alters mood and perception. It is chemically similar to both stimulants and hallucinogens and produces feelings of increased energy and pleasure. While fatal overdoses on MDMA are rare, they can potentially be life threatening—with symptoms including high blood pressure (hypertension), faintness, panic attacks, and in severe cases, a loss of consciousness and seizures.

As per UNODC World Drug Report 2020, Ecstasy continues to be manufactured primarily in Europe, most notably in Western and Central Europe.

Europe accounts for two thirds of the Ecstasy laboratories dismantled worldwide, the NCB said.

"The total quantity of Ecstasy seized worldwide has doubled over the period 2009-2018. This is also reflected in the rapidly increasing popularity of such synthetic drugs in India," the NCB statement said.

Earlier in June, the Air Customs Postal Intelligence from Chennai arrested a Malayasian nation of Indian origin, Kavi Kumar, from Koramangala for allegedly ordering 100 MDMA pills online from Germany. Kavi Kumar was an employee with an e-commerce website and was arrested. The Foreign Post Office in Chennai received the parcel four days before Kavi Kumar’s arrest. The package’s contents were declared as medicines by the sender. But officials at the airmail unit scanned the package to spot yellow and pink-coloured pills. A lab test confirmed that the pills contain MDMA.