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TRI Continental Film Festival - Dona Paula, Goa, Sep 28 - Oct 2, 2007 http://www.moviesgoa.org/tricontinental/tricon.htm Online Media Partner: http://www.goanet.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Goa: Drug dealers use minors as 'mules' By Armstrong Vaz, Qatar Goa, Kully Valley transit points for drugs shipments to Europe Panaji September 10, 2007: The first charter flight will fly into Goa in the first week of October effectively kick- starting the tourist season. The small state in Western India, a former hippie paradise in the late 60's and 70's, welcomed some 3.5 million foreign tourists last season. And with the advent of the new season a host of challenges and ills lay in wait - one of them drugs. Goa is not just an epicenter where drugs are sold at rave and trance parties but in recent years it has become one of the transit point from where drugs are shipped out to various European countries and is also a production centre for synthetic party drugs. And in keeping with the trend of the world wide leaders in drug-smuggling coming up with innovated ideas to escape the long arm of law, the drug lords based in Goa are using young minor children (both boys and girls) to be "mules" and carbonized suitcases to ship their drugs to Europe. The recent arrest of a Nigerian national at the Mumbai airport trying to smuggle drugs out of the country brings into focus the newer and novel ways the drug smugglers have been restoring to in recent times. The heroin, was concealed in the false bottom of the bag and weighed 2.5 kg. Using carbonized suit cases and bags to ship drugs is one such method used by the drug dealers. Carbonized compartments fitted in the suitcases hamper the detection of drugs in the bag, informed one Custom official based in Mumbai. And if that was not enough minor boys and girls are forced by compulsion to act as mules to courier consignments, by drug dealers in Goa. Minor kids are hooked to drugs, who are then forced to carry the drug consignments to foreign destination. An Italian minor was caught at the Dabolim airport in Goa when she was due to board an Indian Airlines flight to Mumbai enroute to Auckland via Singapore last year. The arrest exposed the racket of Israeli drug dealers based in Goa using the new method to transit drugs out of India. More at: http://mangalorean.com/news.php?newstype=broadcast&broadcastid=52685 ~(^^)~ Avelino