India’s Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) officers busted an international heroin smuggling racket with the arrest of the kingpin of a drug cartel at Trichy airport before he could board a flight to Sri Lanka on Saturday.

Officers on Sunday said they picked up A Amjath Khan, a native of Ramanathapuram district, based on information from a former accomplice of the drug smuggler. An investigating officer said Amjath Khan’s network extended to Sri Lanka and Kuwait.

“We arrested Amjath Khan after his aide Rasool Mydeen told us he was scheduled to take a flight from Trichy to Colombo on Saturday,” the officer said. NCB sleuths had arrested Mydeen in Chennai with 1kg of heroin on Friday.

Officers arrested Mydeen at Chennai Central when he arrived in the city by train with 1kg of the narcotic packed in polythene bags.

“The heroin we seized is worth 1 crore in the international market,” the officer said. “Mydeen revealed during questioning that Khan was leaving for Lanka from Trichy.”

Investigations revealed that Khan is married to a Sri Lankan citizen and makes frequent visits to Colombo.

“He employed Mydeen to purchase and bring heroin to the city from northern states. He was trying to market the drug in Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka,” NCB zonal director Prem Anand Sinha said.

Further investigation is in progress to find where they sourced the drug from and the places in which Amjath Khan planned to distribute the contraband, he said.

NCB sleuths said Amjath Khan was aware that Mydeen had been arrest. They suspect that Khan has links to a smuggler they arrested in July for attempting to smuggle heroin to Kuwait, and that the pair were involved in smuggling the contraband to other countries.

With Mydeen’s arrest, the NCB made its third major seizure of heroin in two months. The agency made the other two seizures at the city airport. - TOI