The Narcotics Control Bureau has chosen to recruit professionals and organisations specialising in financial data analysis and forensic auditing to assist it in investigating complicated drug offences including the use of the dark web, cryptocurrencies, and trades hidden behind multi-layered transactions. The year before, Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) Director SN Pradhan mandated that the agency's sleuths solely investigate cases having inter-state and worldwide consequences, as well as those involving difficult investigations and high-profile cartels and syndicates.

He directed his investigative wings to follow up on this move by conducting a proper fund trail inquiry and timely submission of charge papers with relevant courts.

The directive came as the agency was attempting to emerge from the shadow cast by the controversies surrounding its investigation into some cases at its Mumbai zonal office, including the drugs-on-cruise raids in October last year that resulted in the arrest of 20 people, which includes actor Shah Rukh Khan's son Aryan Khan.

The NCB has issued a notice of empanelment seeking consultant firms to assist it in "uncovering the chain of transactions for drug money and providing appropriate counsel in financial investigative concerns." They will also aid the NCB in analysing financial statements and data stored in the bureau's and other agencies' systems.

It will also assist investigators in "preparing statements of income and spending of the interested party and linked parties in order to discover the ill-gotten money."

The specialists are also anticipated to aid NCB teams in performing forensic audits, scrutinising reports and records, and analysing bank statements and property transactions to uncover an accused's, associates', and family members' unlawful income.

The financial professionals would first be assigned to its zonal offices in Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Bengaluru, and Guwahati. The NCB is increasingly finding incidents where the dark web, cryptocurrencies, and different payment gateways and channels are being used for narcotics transactions. The NCB detained 22 persons in March, including software engineers, a financial analyst, an MBA graduate, and one of their own employees, as part of a pan-India drug trafficking network that leverages the 'dark net' and bitcoin to deliver drugs at home.

The NCB detained 22 persons last month, including software engineers, a financial analyst, an MBA graduate, and one of their own employees, as part of a pan-India drug trafficking network that leverages the 'dark net' and bitcoin to deliver drugs at home.

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