Indian Coast Guard Seizes $338M Drugs From Iranian Dhow

The haul was 526 kilograms. Indian Coast Guard ships and surveillance aircraft tracked an Iranian dhow west of the Lakshadweep islands on September 25 after intelligence pointed to a suspicious vessel moving through the Arabian Sea. Teams boarded, found a cache of heroin and methamphetamine in the hold, and detained the five Pakistani nationals aboard. The dhow was then escorted to Mumbai.

The Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad joined the Coast Guard in Mumbai for joint interrogation. Investigators put the combined street value at roughly 30 billion rupees, about $338 million. No link to the Iranian government has emerged.

The five men detained appear to have been working as transit crew rather than principals in the operation. Authorities are still tracing the supply chain: the cargo's origin, its financing, and the intended delivery point.

Iranian-flagged dhows carrying narcotics from Afghanistan toward East Africa or Gulf ports have been intercepted in the northern Indian Ocean with some regularity. Three days before this seizure, Kenya's Navy destroyed over a tonne of methamphetamine seized from an Iranian dhow crew intercepted 630 kilometres off Mombasa. The timing points to multiple arms of the same network running simultaneously.

The Indian Coast Guard had a busy week. Three days after the drug seizure, [the same force brought a flooding chemical tanker under control 37 nautical miles from Paradip, pumping out water and towing MT Seagull 9 and its 23 crew to safety with 9,000 tonnes of palm oil still aboard](https://www.marineradar.com/trends/indian-coast-guard-saves-tanker-and-23-crew-off-odisha-2026-09-29).

On MarineRadar, searches tied to India were up 1.7-fold over the past 48 hours.