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Palk Strait ganja trade

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Satellite view of the southern tip of India and the north of Sri Lanka, with the shallow green waters of the strait between them and a chain of sandbanks across its southern end
The Palk Strait between India (top left) and Sri Lanka, seen by NASA's Aqua satellite in July 2018
The Palk Strait between India (top left) and Sri Lanka, seen by NASA's Aqua satellite in July 2018
Palk Strait ganja trade
Route
FromOdisha, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala
By way ofTamil Nadu → Palk Strait → Northern Province, Sri Lanka or North Western Province, Sri Lanka
ToColombo
How it travelledMixed
Trade
What movedGanja
Carried byFishermen and smuggling groups on both sides of the strait, according to the Sri Lanka Navy, the police and the press
Scale5,521 kg of "Kerala cannabis" seized in Sri Lanka in 2021 (National Dangerous Drugs Control Board)
Period
Active1980s to the present
StatusStill in use
Legal statusIllegal
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The Palk Strait ganja trade is the smuggling of ganja from India into Sri Lanka by sea, across the Palk Strait and the waters off the island's north and north-west. Sri Lankan officials and newspapers call the drug "Kerala ganja" or "Kerala cannabis", after the Indian state of Kerala. Indian excise officials and a 2018 analysis by the Mantraya Institute for Strategic Studies say that the ganja sold under that name is mostly grown elsewhere in India, in Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, and reaches the coast through Tamil Nadu.[1][2] Detections of "Kerala ganja" brought from India, mainly by sea, were reported in Sri Lanka in 1986.[3]: 29 In 2021 Sri Lanka's National Dangerous Drugs Control Board counted 11,068 arrests and 5,521 kg seized for Kerala cannabis,[4] and the Sri Lanka Navy was still reporting seizures in 2026.[5]

Background

In the 1890s ganja was said to be exported from the Madras Presidency to Ceylon, and also to Mysore, Hyderabad and Cochin.[6] In 1897 the governor of Ceylon, Sir West Ridgeway, banned the import of "bang or ganja" by ordinance.[7]: 73

In 1973 the United States embassy in Colombo reported that ganja was grown widely in Sri Lanka, in amounts beyond local use, and that opium seizures had highlighted the possibility of a sizable traffic in opium across the Palk Strait from India.[8] Gerald H. Peiris wrote in 2015 that contraband trade between India and Sri Lanka had long been a profitable business run mostly by gangs on both sides of the strait.[9]

The name "Kerala ganja"

A long reservoir winding between forested hills, seen from a hilltop under a pale sky
The Idukki reservoir in the Cardamom Hills of Kerala. Down To Earth named Idukki in 1994 among the main centres of the state's ganja fields.

The name was in use by 1986, when the Economic Review of Colombo reported detections showing that Kerala ganja, "of a higher potency than the local product", was coming into Sri Lanka from India, mainly by sea, both for local use and in transit to Europe and North America.[3]: 29 In 1994 Down To Earth located Kerala's ganja fields mostly near the border with Tamil Nadu, with Idukki among the main centres.[10]

In 2015 a coast guard official told the Deccan Chronicle that "even low quality ganja is being smuggled as Kerala ganja".[11] In 2016 the chairman of the National Dangerous Drugs Control Board, Ravindra Fernando, said that he saw little difference between the local ganja and the Kerala variety, and suggested that a shortage of the local crop might explain the volume coming in.[12] In 2017 Kerala's excise commissioner said that no mass cultivation was taking place in the state, even in Idukki, that Odisha, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh were the main areas of cultivation, and that ganja from elsewhere might be passed off as Kerala ganja.[1] The Mantraya analysis of 2018 said that cannabis was grown in Kerala only on a small scale in Idukki, that the Idukki Gold crop was unlikely to be reaching Sri Lanka, and that Kerala's excise officials thought the trade name was used "for better profit". In Colombo that year a tola (10 grams) of Kerala ganja cost about 12,000 to 15,000 Sri Lankan rupees, against about 4,000 for local cannabis.[2] The International Narcotics Control Board reported in 2018 that the cannabis herb used in Sri Lanka was "reportedly grown locally or trafficked into the country from Kerala State in India".[13]

The route

In India

Main article: Odisha ganja trade

The Mantraya analysis traced a supply chain that starts in Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka and passes through Tamil Nadu and Kerala to the Palk Strait. Indian customs sources cited in the analysis said that the west coast of India had earlier been used but had become unviable, and that the east coast of Tamil Nadu had become the preferred route.[2] In January 2020 police in Telangana described a group carrying ganja from Andhra Pradesh to Sri Lanka through Tamil Nadu,[14] and in 2021 an official of the Narcotics Control Bureau said that ganja from the Andhra–Odisha border was "smuggled across the ocean to Sri Lanka".[15] In December 2025 officials quoted by News 1st in Colombo called a network that carried ganja from that border region through Tamil Nadu the first known case of ganja from the region reaching Sri Lanka.[16] In 2026 an officer of the Tamil Nadu police's Q Branch said that the smugglers' ganja normally came from Visakhapatnam and the Odisha border.[17]

In 2016 the chairman of Sri Lanka's drugs control board said that the drug came mainly from Tamil Nadu, "specifically Rameshwaram".[12] In 2022 the state police's watch on the coast centred on the Thoothukudi, Pudukkottai and Ramanathapuram areas.[18]

Across the strait

Small boats moored on a calm grey sea under a cloudy sky, seen from the shore
Boats in the Palk Bay off Dhanushkodi, on Rameswaram Island in Tamil Nadu

In 1999 the United States State Department reported that heroin and hashish were the only drugs detected transiting Sri Lanka in significant quantities, and that cannabis was the only illicit drug produced there.[19] UNODC's regional profile of 2005 called the trafficking of heroin from India for local use the country's "single most significant drug problem".[20]: 102 The International Narcotics Control Board reported in 2002 that drug consignments moved by sea, mainly on small vessels, between the southern Coromandel Coast and the west coast of Sri Lanka, and that the war with the Tamil Tigers had kept Sri Lanka from patrolling its coastline adequately.[21] The country had no coast guard.[19]

The 2002 ceasefire between the government and the Tamil Tigers reopened the north-western coastal waters to fishing and other vessels. Sri Lanka's Police Narcotics Bureau reported that traffickers then began crossing the Palk Strait from India.[22] In 2006 police officials named Mannar as the main point of entry for narcotics,[23] and in 2012 the State Department called maritime smuggling from India "the greatest threat to Sri Lanka".[24]

In 2015 the Sri Lanka Navy's spokesman said that trafficking across the Palk Strait was rising, with Kerala-grown cannabis entering the country on a large scale, and that both Sri Lankan and Indian fishermen were involved.[25] In 2016 the navy's spokesman said that the smugglers mostly passed themselves off as fishermen among the hundreds of Indian fishing boats, and the Sunday Times reported that most of the drug was handed over at sea to boats from Sri Lanka.[12] A retired Sri Lankan rear admiral wrote in 2024 that the Palk Bay and Palk Strait carried "Kerala Cannabis" from the Tamil Nadu coast, while heroin and methamphetamine came by a separate route across the high seas.[26]

In Sri Lanka

In 2016 The Sunday Times of Colombo called the Jaffna Peninsula a "hub" for distributing Kerala ganja. The navy's spokesman named the coast from the islands off the north-west down to Kalpitiya and Puttalam as the smugglers' main route.[12] In 2017 the same paper called the Northern Province "a transshipment hub for the narcotic".[27] Police officials told the State Department in 2012 that drugs crossing the strait went on overland to the south,[24] and the Sunday Times reported in 2021 that most of the drugs that came ashore were carried south.[28]

Of the 11,068 arrests for Kerala cannabis in 2021, 54 per cent were in the Western Province and 10 per cent each in the Northern and North Western provinces. Colombo District had 5,386 of them, Puttalam District 1,033 and Mannar District 543.[4]: 3, 6

Carriers and payment

The retired rear admiral wrote that those who ferry the cannabis work on contract for bigger dealers based in the Jaffna Peninsula.[26] A Mannar fisherman told the Sunday Times in 2021 that many local fishermen were drawn to work for the smugglers by the money,[28] and in 2023 the navy's spokesman said that the economic crisis had "pushed some fishermen towards the narcotic transport mafia".[29] The Mantraya analysis said that those involved ranged from teenagers to "influential businessmen and politicians",[2] and a Sunday Times investigation in 2018 alleged that some senior law-enforcement officers were colluding with the smugglers.[30]

In 2020 security officials in the north said that local gold slabs were being melted down and carried to the sea borders as payment for drugs.[31] A source quoted by the Sunday Times in 2021 said that Indian smugglers were being paid in gold biscuits for their cannabis.[28] After Sri Lanka banned the import of turmeric in 2020, the paper reported that runners from southern India had taken to smuggling turmeric instead of Kerala ganja because it paid more.[32]

Scale

The International Narcotics Control Board's report for 2014 said that almost 82 tons of cannabis "from India" were seized in Sri Lanka in the period it covered.[33] Its report for 2018 called the 81.9 tons seized in 2013 a record and gave no origin for them.[13] Later figures count Kerala cannabis on its own:

Year Kerala cannabis seized Reported by
2014 about 400 kg; about 120 arrests, 11 of them Indian nationals Sri Lanka Navy[25]
2016 to April 2017 2,140 kg, in raids at sea Sri Lanka Navy[27]
2019 more than 3.4 tonnes Sri Lanka Navy[34]
2021 5,521 kg; 11,068 arrests National Dangerous Drugs Control Board (all agencies)[4]: 2, 7
2022 5,731 kg Sri Lanka Navy[35]
2022 12,146 kg; 34,499 arrests Sri Lanka Police[29]
2024 1,752 kg Sri Lanka Navy[36]
2026 (to 21 July) 667.7 kg Sri Lanka Navy[5]

Police in Thanjavur said in 2022 that ganja bought at 3,000 Indian rupees a kilogram was sold to middlemen at 20,000 and in Sri Lanka at 50,000.[37] In Jaffna in 2022 a 1.5 kg bundle of Kerala cannabis sold wholesale for 450,000 Sri Lankan rupees.[38]

Enforcement

Ganja is prohibited in India under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985,[39] and in Sri Lanka the principal statute, according to UNODC, is the Poisons, Opium and Dangerous Drugs Ordinance of 1935.[20]: 111–112

On the Indian side, the Ramanathapuram district police formed a surveillance squad against drug smuggling to Sri Lanka in 2015,[40] and the Tamil Nadu police put the coast on alert in December 2022 after intelligence that drug syndicates might use the sea route to Sri Lanka.[18] In Sri Lanka a ten-member unit of the Police Marine Division began work at sea from Mannar in December 2016.[41] By 2017, on a directive of the Jaffna High Court, suspects in cases of Kerala cannabis smuggling were not given bail.[27] India's Narcotics Control Bureau and Sri Lanka's Police Narcotics Bureau agreed in May 2018 to cooperate and exchange information on drug smuggling between the two countries.[2]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Raghunath, Arjun (16 November 2017). "Kerala ganja sends up swirls in Sri Lanka". Deccan Chronicle. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Routray, Bibhu Prasad (5 July 2018). Sri Lanka's Cannabis Problem: Roots in India (Report). Mantraya Analysis. Mantraya Institute for Strategic Studies. No. 27. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Drug trafficking and abuse in Sri Lanka". Economic Review. 12 (6). Colombo: People's Bank: 28–31. September 1986. Retrieved 30 October 2026 – via National Science Foundation Digital Library.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 National Dangerous Drugs Control Board. Drug related statistics 2021 (PDF) (Report). Research Division, National Dangerous Drugs Control Board. pp. 2, 6–7. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Navy Seizes Large Quantities of Narcotics in 2026 Operations". Ceylon Wire. 21 July 2026. Retrieved 31 October 2026.
  6. ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. XV, "Existing systems described", paras. 622–624, pp. 303–304 – via Internet Archive.
  7. ↑ Uragoda, C. G. (January 1983). "History of opium in Sri Lanka". Medical History. 27 (1): 69–76. doi:10.1017/s0025727300042277.
  8. ↑ Embassy of the United States in Sri Lanka (18 September 1973). "Telegram 2330 From the Embassy in Sri Lanka to the Department of State: Narcotics Control Action Plan for Sri Lanka". Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume E-8, Documents on South Asia, 1973–1976. Office of the Historian, United States Department of State. document 62. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
  9. ↑ Peiris, Gerald H. (17 June 2015). "LTTE and Narcotics: Hanging on to the Tiger's Tail". The Island. Colombo. Retrieved 30 October 2026 – via Thuppahi's Blog.
  10. ↑ Pradeep, P. R. J. (15 April 1994). "Up in smoke". Down To Earth. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
  11. ↑ "Navy hunts down 'Kerala ganja' smugglers". Daily FT. Colombo. Deccan Chronicle. 13 July 2015. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 Jayawardana, S. (13 March 2016). "Kerala ganja via the north freely available in Kalpitiya, Puttalam despite detections". The Sunday Times. Colombo.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 International Narcotics Control Board. "Analysis of the world situation: Asia" (PDF). Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 2018 (Report). United Nations. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
  14. ↑ Nitin B. (24 January 2020). "Telangana police bust gang smuggling ganja to Sri Lanka from Andhra, 4 held". The News Minute. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
  15. ↑ TNN (1 February 2021). "Ganja from Andhra Pradesh being sold pan India and in Sri Lanka". The Times of India. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
  16. ↑ "Cannabis Network Linking Odisha to Sri Lanka Exposed". News 1st. Colombo. 29 December 2025. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
  17. ↑ DT Next Bureau (31 July 2026). "Three arrested in Ramanathapuram with 292 kg ganja meant to be smuggled to Sri Lanka". DT Next. Chennai. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 "TN police on alert after inputs on drug syndicates in coastal areas". DT Next. Chennai. IANS. 16 December 2022. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. "Sri Lanka". International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 1999 (Report). United States Department of State. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 UNODC Regional Office for South Asia (September 2005). Sri Lanka (PDF) (Report). South Asia Regional Profile. New Delhi: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. pp. 102–112.
  21. ↑ International Narcotics Control Board. "Analysis of the world situation: Asia" (PDF). Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 2002 (Report). United Nations. E/INCB/2002/1. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
  22. ↑ Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. "Sri Lanka". International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 2003 (Report). United States Department of State. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
  23. ↑ Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. "Sri Lanka". International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 2006 (Report). United States Department of State. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. "Sri Lanka". International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, 2012 (Report). United States Department of State. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 "Narcotics smuggling via Palk Strait drives Indo-SL relations to new high". The Sunday Times. Colombo. 26 July 2015. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 Jayarathna, Y. N. (26 November 2024). "Maritime Crime: Time to rethink how we respond to narco trafficking". The Morning. Colombo. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 27.2 "Indian drug smugglers, village youth gangs make Jaffna a crime-infested zone". The Sunday Times. Colombo. 9 April 2017. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 28.2 "Authorities swim against tide to rein in Kerala Cannabis smuggling racket". The Sunday Times. Colombo. 18 July 2021. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 Fazlulhaq, Nadia (12 February 2023). "Heroin, cocaine, and Kerala cannabis hauls enough to fill warehouses". The Sunday Times. Colombo. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
  30. ↑ "Caught in the claws of narcotics monster, Lanka cries out for freedom". The Sunday Times. Colombo. 5 August 2018. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
  31. ↑ "Navy says COVID-hit Indian fisherfolk smuggling drugs". The Sunday Times. Colombo. 12 July 2020. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
  32. ↑ "South Indian smugglers go for turmeric instead of ganja". The Sunday Times. Colombo. 26 July 2020. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
  33. ↑ International Narcotics Control Board. "Analysis of the world situation: Asia" (PDF). Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 2014 (Report). United Nations. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
  34. ↑ Sri Lanka Navy (1 February 2020). "Navy seizes over half a ton of Kerala cannabis through its successful operations since the beginning of this year". Sri Lanka Navy News. Retrieved 31 October 2026.
  35. ↑ "Naval operations thwarted numerous illegal acts in 2022". Ministry of Defence, Sri Lanka. 16 January 2023. Retrieved 31 October 2026.
  36. ↑ "Sri Lanka Navy seizes over Rs. 28 Bn worth of drugs and contraband in 2024". Daily Mirror. Colombo. 6 January 2025. Retrieved 31 October 2026.
  37. ↑ "Thanjavur cops foil bid to smuggle ganja worth Rs 2 crore to Sri Lanka, 14 held". DT Next. Chennai. 17 February 2022. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
  38. ↑ Rubathesan, S. (23 October 2022). "Jaffna youths sucked into drug hell by the dozen, crimes rebound". The Sunday Times. Colombo. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
  39. ↑ The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985(Act No. 61 of 1985), 1985, section 20.India.
  40. ↑ Siriwardana, Ajith (18 July 2015). "Indian police to block Indo-Lanka drug trafficking". Daily Mirror. Colombo. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
  41. ↑ Jayawardana, Sandun (11 December 2016). "New police unit to take drug war to the sea". The Sunday Times. Colombo. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
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