A total of 119 local and international syndicates are controlling the country's yaba trade, informed sources said.
Law-enforcement agencies in recent times have found more than 100 local and 19 international syndicates involved in yaba smuggling.
The syndicates are using the coastal areas of Cox's Bazar as a safe route for smuggling the narcotic. All the yaba consignments are coming from neighbouring Myanmar through sea routes, sources said.
About 11 Myanmar organisations have set up 40 factories in the border areas. And every day they are pushing more than 3.0 million pieces of yaba tablets into Bangladesh, sources added.
The police sources said every month illegal yaba tablets worth more than Tk 15 billion are entering the country through sea route.
From Cox's Bazar, the local narcotics dealers have been using car, bus, truck, ambulance and even air route to carry the yaba tablets to various destinations across the country.
Each packet contains 200 yaba tablets with varied colours. Traders buy a tablet at about Tk 180-200 but sell it at Tk 500-550 to the users -- mostly youngsters, including students.
Several times the law enforcers have seized big and small consignments. However, the real influential drug barons remain out of the dragnet of agencies concerned.
"The law enforcement agencies have identified about 19 top dealers in Myanmar supply chain who deal with 100 big local dealers in several districts of Bangladesh," an official of the Detective Branch (DB) of Police at Cox's Bazar told the FE correspondent.
He said there are about 1000 sub-dealers working under the top Bangladeshi dealers and they supply the yaba tablets to retailers across the country.
The police official said Bangladesh Coast Guard personnel recovered 0.2 million yaba tablets worth Tk 100 million on August 24 last from a trawler in Kafco area at the estuary of the Karnaphuli river of Chittagong. It was one of the biggest hauls in recent times.
Of late, people of middle- and lower-middle-class families mostly consume yaba, the official said.
Such drugs were previously used by high-society children, including private university students. But now the drug market has expanded significantly.
According to him, the law enforcing agencies in the first six months of this calendar year (January-October) have netted some 2.2 million pieces of yaba tablets.
The law enforcers seized a total of 2.8 million pieces of yaba tablets in 2013 against 1.9 million recorded in 2012.
The number of seized yaba tablets was only 0.12 million in 2009, 0.81 million in 2010 and 1.3 million in 2011.
Sources said there are about 150 spots in the capital under the control of a number of strong syndicates of yaba traders.
The traders mainly run their business allegedly in connivance with some members of law-enforcement agencies and the narcotics control department.
The Cox's Bazar police station data show in last ten months the law- enforcing agencies, including BGB (Border Guard Bangladesh), RAB (Rapid Action Battalion) and Ukhia police, had arrested more than 200 persons who were carrying yaba tablets. The arrests were made in various places of Cox's Bazar maritime areas.
Awnsa Thorai, office-in-charge of Ukhia police station in Cox's Bazar, said in last 10 months they had arrested 50 persons for their involvement in yaba smuggling and filed 23 cases.
Dr Zia Rahman, chairman of the Department of Criminology of Dhaka University, said due to growing urbanization the yaba-addiction trend is very high in the country.
He said financial abilities of the people are growing, and as a result, large numbers of young generation are turning to the latest addiction.
"Some years ago, few Bangladeshi people had heard of yaba but now a large number of people use the pills," he said.
The criminology professor is of the view that the narcotic tablet is easily available as the country's drug-control machinery is "very poor".
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