According to latest reports, Indian anti-narcotics agencies have found that drug trafficking in the country is being increasingly carried out through the dark Web or ‘darknet’ and the unregulated cryptocurrency bitcoin.

The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), the chief law enforcement and intelligence agency of India responsible for fighting drug trafficking and the abuse of illegal substances, has interdicted two such syndicates operating in the country.

Speaking with PTI, NCB Director General R R Bhatnagar said:

"For the first time, we have detected drug traffickers using the darknet and Bitcoin for running the illegal drug racket in India. I can tell you that our investigations have shown that some of these operatives are based in the country. We are probing them”.

Bhatnagar said the two interdicted syndicates were prima facie seen indulging in trafficking of party drugs. He further said that the use of such ultra-secret measures, such as darknet and bitcoin, over the internet in drug crimes is worrying, and added that the agency is enhancing its capabilities to effectively and timely detect these instances.

Speaking about the drug trafficking scenario in the country, he said that the cross-border availability of heroin has decreased. Earlier, Bhatnagar had informed the Union Home Ministry that drug addicts in Punjab, an Indian state, were gradually shifting to medicine-based concoctions following the crack down on peddling of traditional narcotic drugs.

"Our estimate is that due to effective clampdown by the agencies tasked to check the drugs menace, there has been a 30 per cent decline in trafficking in Punjab," the DG said.

According to the official data for 2015, Punjab accounted for the maximum seizures of opium and heroin nationwide.

In 2013, the country’s central bank said that it does not authorize using digital currencies as a medium for payment. However, last year Raghuram Rajan, Governor of Reserve Bank of India (RBI), said that though the central bank has not intervened in the cryptocurrency space, it is carefully watching the area. In addition, RBI Deputy Governor SS Mundra stressed the need to regulate cryptocurrency market in the country.