Turkish man held at IGI airport with 1.3L tablets of 'ISIS drug'

A Turkish man was apprehended early Monday by the CISF at the Delhi airport for allegedly trying to smuggle over 1.3 lakh Tramadol tablets, a painkiller also known as the 'ISIS drug', a senior official said.

He said the activities of Erbil H, holding a Turkish passport, were found "suspicious" when he arrived at the airport at around 3 am.

He was subsequently subjected to a detailed frisking by the force personnel, he said.

"1,30,000 Tramadol tablets weighing about 64 kg were found in the bag of the Turkish man. He was handed over to anti-narcotics sleuths for further probe," a CISF spokesperson said.

The man was supposed to take a flight to Istanbul from the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport, he said.

It has been learnt that Tramadol is generally used as a pain killer by different terrorist groups and is also know as jihadi pill, ISIS drugs or fighter drugs and the price of the said medicine in the middle east is about USD 5 per tablet, the spokesperson said.

He added the Turkish man was also nabbed by the Central Industrial Security Force staff at this airport in April this year for using a "fake ticket" to enter the terminal.

The Union government in April had declared the drug as a "psychotropic substance" and brought it under the control of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.

The synthetic opiate is known to be abused on a wide scale by ISIS terrorists to suppress pain and boost strength during injury and hence, is also known as 'fighter drug' among international anti-narcotics authorities.

The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), a national agency to coordinate drug law enforcement action by involving various state agencies, police and central departments, had asked the government in July last year to bring this drug under its "regulation and control" so that it could only be used for medicinal purposes and its abuse be checked.