KATHMANDU - An extensive network of drug traffickers snaking through India to Indonesia with its roots in Afghanistan has been busted by Nepal police with the arrest of an Indian in Kathmandu who was carrying white heroin worth at least NRS 750 million in the international market.

Acting on a tip-off, Nepal Police arrested Ravikumar Kethandapti Rangaswami at Kathmandu’s Tribhuban International Airport while he was in the process of catching a Thai Airways flight to Bangkok Wednesday, from where he was headed for Jakarta, the Indonesian capital.

Rangaswami, a resident of Chennai in Tamil Nadu, was carrying three steel thermos flasks with false bottoms where police found concealed 19 kg of white heroin.

In Asia, a kilo of the narcotic fetches an approximate price of $20,000 a kilo while after it is smuggled to Europe, the market value shoots up to $50,000 a kilo.

This is the biggest heroin haul ever made by Nepal police.

Though the Indian was arrested Wednesday evening, the news became public only Friday.

Rangaswami had eluded detection by travelling to Kathmandu using a tortuous land route through India.

From Chennai, he went to Kolkata, where he was given the drug, then proceeded to Siliguri to cross into Nepal through the Kakarbhitta check post.

After reaching Kathmandu, he stayed in a hotel in Thamel, the capital’s tourist hub as well as a growing centre for drug and counterfeit currency dealers and sex tourism.

The Indian told police that this was his first attempt to use Nepal to smuggle heroin out of India.

Since 2007, the former goldsmith who switched to drugs for quick money, had travelled to Singapore, the Philippines, China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Bangladesh.

According to Nepal’s Narcotics Drug Control Law Enforcement Unit, Nepal is increasingly becoming the new transit route to smuggle white heroin from Afghanistan via India to Europe.

The drug mostly comes from war-torn Afghanistan, which accounts for about 80 percent of its production. In 2008, Afghanistan had grown 8,000 tonnes of opium, which is refined to make white heroin.

India occupies the third-highest spot for the production of opium.

The drug is being sent through Nepal from where couriers carry it to Bangkok, Jakarta, Doha, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

It is then flown to Spain, the Netherlands and other Scandinavian countries.

Nepalis and Africans are mostly hired as the mules to smuggle caches through Nepal. The maximum number of foreigners arrested while trying to smuggle out drugs through Nepal are Nigerians.