While our law enforcement agencies have been intensifying their drives to break the network of yaba traders along Myanmar-Bangladesh borders, their efforts seem to be falling behind, as drug dealers are adopting novel methods of smuggling yaba from Myanmar to Bangladesh. According to a report by this daily, national and transnational syndicates are now using local "drug mules" – also known as "fighters" – who have trained themselves in such a way that they can avert the scrutiny of law enforcers while working as informers of the smugglers.

According to the law enforcers, these "fighters" have trained themselves to hold their breath for a long time, hide underneath riverside mud for hours, motionless, or to stay seated on a tree the whole night – techniques that have made them competent agents of the drug traders. They usually go to the Naf River with fishing rods to keep an eye on law enforcers' movement, and whenever they notice any lax monitoring by law enforcers or gaps during changes in duty, they send signals to the smugglers. Smugglers from the Myanmar side then enter Bangladesh's territory via small, speedy boats, and deliver the consignments to them and return.

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Yaba smuggling: Drug dealers turn to new tactics to dodge police

After the drugs enter our territory, these consignments are given to the second-tier carriers – usually, transport workers and CNG-run auto-rickshaw drivers – who then carry them to the staff members of some luxury buses or regular trucks to transport them to Dhaka and elsewhere. Currently, along with yaba, "ice" is also smuggled into Bangladesh through some 21 points in Cox's Bazar and two points in Bandarban. From the manner in which these drugs are smuggled into the country, one can easily understand the strength of the transnational drug syndicates.

What we fail to understand, however, is why our law enforcers are finding it so difficult to arrest the drug traders and their local mules since they have ample information on their activities. We think our law enforcers need to come up with some innovative techniques of their own to match the strategies of drug traders. But arresting drug traders alone will not solve the problem. We have seen how our law enforcers waged a war against drugs in 2018 but, unfortunately, that could not stop the proliferation of drugs in the country.

Therefore, we have to find the right ways to put a stop to the scourge of drug trade. Apart from making regular arrests, we should also think of ways to rehabilitate the local people who once were, or still are, involved in drug trade, often because of poverty. Also, arresting only the local drug dealers, leaving their kingpins both in Bangladesh and Myanmar untouched, will not help. To that end, we must create pressure on Myanmar to work with us and take effective steps to stop the drug trade.