The Indian Coast Guard has seized more than a ton of ketamine and arrested six Myanmar crew members of a ship carrying the drug, Indian authorities said.
Drugs worth about $42 million were in a ship that was spotted by a coast guard plane on Wednesday as it sailed through the Indian Ocean with its lights off, India's defense ministry said.
The ship's crew did not respond to radio messages, so the Coast Guard eventually boarded the vessel. On Friday, they came across "57 bags with a suspicious substance".
"Preliminary analysis showed that the suspected substance is ketamine. It was on the ship, in 1.160 packages of one kilogram," the announcement stated.
The six arrested Myanmar nationals as well as the ship's cargo were transferred to Port Blair, the capital of the Indian territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
They said they left Myanmar on September 14.
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are located off the coast of Southeast Asia, not far from Myanmar.
Parts of Laos, Thailand and Myanmar are located in the "Golden Triangle" region, a hub for the methamphetamine trade from where the drug is shipped to the rest of Southeast Asia.
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