More women seems to be increasingly deployed as carriers for smuggling in suspected hydroponic weed, also known as hybrid ganja, mostly from Bangkok in Thailand going by the seizures by Customs at the Kochi airport.

Two women were intercepted and arrested with 15 kg of suspected hydroponic weed, valued at around ₹4.50 crore last month. One was a model from Jaipur in Rajasthan, and the other a makeup artist from Delhi. They were intercepted on their arrival from Bangkok by a Thai Airways flight on March 19.

“According to their statement, there were 17 such potential women carriers at the place where they had stayed in Bangkok before being put on a flight with the contraband. Even before, we had noticed a change in the modus operandi in increasingly deploying more women. That women were likely to evoke relatively less suspicion and hence would manage to stay below the radar could be a possible reason,” Customs sources said.

Besides, frisking of suspected women carriers raise the need for more women Customs officers, which is another inconvenience since there were more male officers than women. This could be another reason for rackets smuggling hybrid ganja are changing tracks by deploying more women, said sources.

The carriers are being offered a remuneration for each trip plus air ticket, accommodation and food. However, Customs seem hardly convinced about the remuneration in the range of ₹10,000 to ₹30,000, which the carriers claimed they were being paid for the hazardous trip.

In the last few months alone, around 15 instances of smuggling accounting for around 30kg to 40kg of suspected hybrid ganja were intercepted by Customs at the Kochi airport, almost all from Bangkok, which also seems a hub for the smuggling of exotic birds, animals and plants as well. Incidentally, the 3 kg of suspected ganja, which the excise seized from a couple – Sultan Akbar Ali and Thasleema Sulthana – from near a resort at Omanapuzha in Alappuzha were also traced back to Bangkok. Allegedly, Sultan had brought the drug from Bangkok in Thailand for distribution in Kerala, especially in the film and tourism sectors with the help of his wife.

Hybrid ganja is created by crossing different cannabis strains and reportedly is more impactful and comes in different flavours and aromas. Hence, it is costlier than normal ganja and is transacted mostly on the dark web.

Enforcement against hybrid ganja, however, remains tricky. “The NDPS Act (Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances) has no different categories of ganja or different punishment provisions. The Act simply mentions ganja and possession of less than 1kg is categorised as small quantity and is bailable. This means that there are repeated offenders,” said sources. In one such case, Customs recorded the statement of one of the accused at a prison in Kozhikode after being arrested in another drug case by the Karipur police.