The coast guard and Gujarat’s anti-terrorism squad have seized 300kg of suspected methamphetamine, valued at ₹1,800 crore, that smugglers had dumped into the Arabian Sea off the Gujarat coast before fleeing, officials said on Monday.

A coast guard official said the smugglers spotted the patrol ship from their fishing boat half a mile inside Indian waters and dumped the drugs, apparently smuggled from Pakistan. They then fled across the international maritime boundary line (IMBL).

“More than 300kg of narcotics approximately valued at ₹1,800 crore have been seized. The seized drug is suspected to be methamphetamine,” a coast guard release said.

The seized drug has been handed over to the anti-terrorism squad (ATS) for further probe, the release added.

It said the ATS and the coast guard were jointly carrying out “an intelligence-based anti-narcotics operation” near the international maritime boundary line off the Gujarat coast on April 12-13 night.

“Based on an input from the Gujarat ATS, an ICG (Indian Coast Guard) ship from the Coast Guard Region (West) was diverted to that area in the sea near IMBL where a suspected (sic) boat’s presence was detected,” the release added.

When the smugglers dumped the drugs into the sea and began fleeing towards the IMBL, the coast guard ship “deployed its sea boat immediately for recovery of the jettisoned consignment whilst commencing a hot chase of the suspect boat”.

However, the smugglers were close enough to the international maritime boundary line to be able to cross it before the coast guard boat could catch them.

“Later, the Coast Guard team, after a thorough search in the tough night conditions, recovered the narcotics which were dumped into the sea,” the release said.

“The seized narcotics have been brought to Porbandar by the ICG ship for further investigations.”

The Gujarat coast haswitnessed several drug seizures in recent years.

In April last year, 14 Pakistanis were arrested off the Gujarat coast and 86kg of suspected heroin, worth around ₹600 crore, was seizedfrom them.

Two months earlier, the navy, Narcotics Control Bureau and the Gujarat police had seized around 3,300kg of drugs, estimated to be worth about ₹1,300 crore, from an Iranian boat.

In September 2021, nearly 3,000kg of heroin from Afghanistan was seized from the Adani-operated Mundra port in Gujarat.

Monday’s release saidthat collaboration between the coast guard and theATS had led to 13 successes against drug traffickers in recent years.