Bangladesh Coast Guard seized 7.8 lakh yaba pills Friday from near Chhera Dwip, an uninhabited smaller island off Saint Martin's at the mouth of the River Naf in the Bay of Bengal.
"Acting on a tip-off, a team of coast guard were patrolling the sea along Chhera Island today and signalled a boat to stop at around 6pm," Lieutenant Khandaker Munif Taki, media officer of Bangladesh Coast Guard Headquarters, said.
Defying the signal, the boatmen escaped towards the Myanmar border after disposing of four sacks wrapped in plastic into the sea, Munif Taki said.
"Later, the coast guard members seized the sacks and found them to have contained 7.8 lakh yaba tablets. The seized tablets are being handed over to Teknaf Model Police Station," he added.
Yaba – a mixture of methamphetamine and caffeine sold as cheap red or pink pills – first appeared in Bangladesh in 2002, and its use and abuse have steadily risen since then.
Manufactured illegally in industrial quantities in Myanmar, it is smuggled into Bangladesh in the far southeast of the country, where the border partly follows the River Naf.