OPINION | The Evidence Economy: Why Chain of Custody Decides Who Wins the Maritime Drug War

By Commodore Ranjit B. Rai (Retd)

The contest over narcotics in the Indian Ocean is no longer fought only with ships and sensors; it is fought with evidence. The real victory in maritime counter-narcotics lies not in seizing drugs but in sustaining convictions. In this theatre, chain of custody has become a weapon of credibility, the yardstick by which navies, coast guards, and governments are judged.

For two decades, Indian Ocean states have intercepted dhows, burned contraband, and issued triumphant communiqués. Yet without a verifiable paper trail, these operations dissolve into headlines. The difference between a deterrent and a photo opportunity now depends on who can prove, in court and in diplomacy, that enforcement is more than theatre.

From Seizure to Sentence

India’s approach has matured from reactive interdiction to what may be called a “Sea-to-Sentence” architecture. Every interdiction, whether by the Navy or Coast Guard, is designed as the first step of a legal process, not the last act of a patrol.

From the moment a boarding party steps onto a suspect dhow, the evidence machine begins. Packages are photographed, weighed, and barcoded under GPS time stamps. Suspects are recorded and digitally logged. Within hours, the case transitions from tactical custody to legal custody under the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) or Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI). The drugs, crew, and seized electronics are escorted to a designated port, Kochi, Porbandar, or Mumbai, where magistrates certify inventories before samples move to forensic labs.

This bureaucratic discipline is not mere paperwork; it is strategic signaling. It says that India treats every seizure as part of rule-of-law governance, not as a transient show of force. The outcome is visible: in 2024 alone, Indian courts handed down multiple long sentences under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, including a 20-year term for six men linked to a Gujarat coast haul. Each conviction reinforces the credibility of Indian enforcement across the Indo-Pacific.

Evidence as Strategy

India’s method is distinctive in a region where maritime crime often sits in the twilight between law and politics. Elsewhere, drugs are displayed, destroyed, and forgotten. In India, they are documented and prosecuted.

Operations such as Khojbeen (2022), Crimson Barracuda (2024), and Tarkash (2025) are all identifiable by their code names, dates, and publicly released details. Press Information Bureau notes, CMF statements, and court filings carry matching figures, rare precision in a region prone to exaggeration. This verifiability transforms India’s enforcement into strategic capital: partners, insurers, and foreign courts accept its data without contest.

By contrast, Pakistan’s October 2025 claim of a US $1 billion narcotics seizure under the Combined Maritime Forces made global headlines but collapsed into opacity. No boarding logs, crew identities, or laboratory results were released; officials said the drugs were incinerated. For analysts, the takeaway was familiar: an impressive spectacle with no visible audit trail.

In the emerging evidence economy of maritime security, such opacity is self-defeating. Without proof, seizures do not deter; they only decorate.

The Law’s Long Arm at Sea

International maritime law reinforces this logic. Under Article 108 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), states are obliged to cooperate in suppressing narcotics trafficking by sea. However, enforcement depends on admissible evidence. A seizure that cannot be proven compliant with due process weakens prosecution and exposes the state to legal challenge under human-rights covenants.

India’s system aligns operational practice with international expectations. Section 52A of the NDPS Act requires photographed evidence and magistrate-approved sampling, while the Prevention of Illicit Traffic Act (1988) permits asset freezing linked to maritime narcotics. These provisions, rooted in transparency, make India’s cases resilient under scrutiny by global institutions such as UNODC, FATF, and Interpol.

This legal rigor also helps New Delhi push for common standards across the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA). If regional navies follow compatible chain-of-custody procedures, prosecutions can withstand defense lawyers’ claims of mishandling, and traffickers can be convicted across jurisdictions.

The Forensic Turn

Technology has added new depth to this legal architecture. The Central Revenue Control Laboratory in Kochi and the Directorate of Forensic Science in Gujarat now conduct chemical and isotopic profiling to determine the origin of seized narcotics. Such analyses, sometimes matching samples to poppy fields or meth labs by trace signatures, feed both prosecutions and strategic assessments at the Information Fusion Centre–Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR).

Boarding teams have been equipped with field evidence kits that seal and geotag samples on site. These prevent contamination and ensure that photographs, weights, and chain-of-custody forms are consistent with laboratory results. A digital interface links NCB, DRI, and Coast Guard databases, reducing the procedural lapses that once weakened India’s prosecutions.

For international partners, this consistency is a mark of trust. CMF and Interpol now integrate Indian seizure data directly into global trafficking maps without secondary verification, something they do not extend to every regional player.

The Regional Gap

Across the broader western Indian Ocean, however, chain-of-custody failures remain endemic. UNODC case studies show that in nearly 40 percent of interdictions, evidence is rendered inadmissible by procedural gaps, improper sealing, missing witness statements, or contradictory laboratory readings. Without reliable paperwork, major seizures collapse, and smugglers return to sea.

This weakness perpetuates what analysts call the “cycle of spectacle”: grand announcements of enforcement followed by quiet amnesia. It also corrodes regional credibility before financial watchdogs. When FATF’s October 2025 report warned that Pakistan-based groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammad were exploiting digital wallets and shadow transfers, it linked financial opacity to the same institutional laxity visible in maritime enforcement. The message was consistent: without transparency, compliance collapses.

The Diplomacy of Proof

For India, chain-of-custody discipline is not just law; it is diplomacy. Evidence builds coalitions. Countries share data only with partners they trust to protect it. By producing verifiable documentation, India has positioned itself as a preferred information custodian in the Indian Ocean.

The Interpol “Silver Notice” of 2025, tracing a Dubai-based cartel financier to assets in India, relied on NDPS case files generated through this evidentiary pipeline. UNODC officials cite Indian procedures as regional best practice. Even small island states such as Seychelles and Mauritius have adopted Indian templates for their own narcotics documentation, effectively regionalizing Indian standards.

This transfer of practice amounts to soft power by paperwork. In a region crowded by grey-zone operations and headline diplomacy, verifiable governance becomes the quiet currency of influence.

Why the Evidence Economy Matters

The implications extend beyond narcotics. As maritime crime networks diversify into fuel smuggling, human trafficking, and illegal fishing, the same chain-of-custody logic will underpin future regimes of accountability. States that can produce reliable data, ship tracks, manifests, and crew logs, will command credibility in disputes ranging from environmental damage to piracy.

For navies, this demands a cultural shift. The job is no longer done when contraband is seized; it is done when evidence can survive scrutiny before a judge or an international committee. It is governance as deterrence, proof as power.

A Closing Reflection

In my years at sea, I saw how easy it is to mistake activity for effectiveness. A seizure makes news; a conviction makes policy. The next frontier of maritime security will not be won by those who shout the loudest about their busts, but by those who can prove them, line by line, form by form, fact by fact.

The evidence economy rewards states that transform policing into jurisprudence, enforcement into governance. In that race, India is ahead, not because it seizes the most drugs, but because it shows its work.

In the Indian Ocean, deterrence now flows not from the barrel of a gun, but from the integrity of a document.

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About Author

Commodore Ranjit B Rai (Retd) is the author of the book 'The Indian Navy @75: Reminiscing the Voyage. He is an RNSC-qualified officer who served as Director Naval Intelligence and Director Naval Operations and writes on maritime matters. He also served as the India Representative of Waterman Steam Ships USA and curated the New Delhi Maritime Museum.