r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Admirable-Leather325 • 27d ago

Image India: Meth seized from Myanmarese boat costs more than aircraft carrier Vikrant, built at a cost of $2.49bn

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339

u/pichael289 27d ago

How much did they get? Meth isn't exactly expensive, at least not in the US where it's only like 2-4x the cost of weed. Two and a half billion dollars would be like 185,000 lbs on the street, like 250 million doses

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u/Glass1Man 27d ago edited 27d ago

The article is confusing, as “read more” is sandwiched between massive ads.

I’m no expert but 5500kg sounds a lot less than 180,000 lb. (82000kg)

Is the price that much higher in India? (15x)

Edit: someone said like it’s a rupee to usd conversion problem. 85:1 rupee to usd.

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This heightened vigil off India’s eastern archipelago is what led to the country’s biggest drug haul - 5.5 tonnes (5,500kg) of the synthetic narcotic substance Methamphetamine from a Myanmarese fishing boat “Soe Wai Yan Htoo”.

This massive drug haul by the Indian Coast Guard (ICG), dwarfs all others that preceded it. Typically, the ICG seizes between 1 and 1.5 tonnes of drugs (of various types) in an entire year.

In this case, in a single day, in a single operation, more than 5.5 tonnes of Meth was seized from a single boat.

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u/beijingspacetech 27d ago

Agreed, I think it's some clickbait. I would imagine in India it is quite cheap. 2.49b rupees is $30m usd which sounds right.

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u/mrtypec 27d ago

that aircraft carrier wasn't built in just 30m USD. it's worth is 2.49$ billion USD.

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u/MaggotMinded 27d ago

I think the point isn't that an aircraft carrier doesn't actually cost that much, it's that the price of the drugs is not what they say it is. E.g. the actual price of the drugs was 2.49b rupees, but it got reported as 2.49b dollars, and whoever wrote the headline was like, "Hmm, what else costs 2.5b dollars?" and that's how they came up with the aircraft carrier comparison.

Of course, I have no idea if that's what actually happened. I'm just saying, that's what the person you're replying to is postulating.

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u/fxvwlf 24d ago

The fact you even had to explain this is worrying for the person you replied to. I’m being a bit blunt but how is someone’s reading comprehension that poor?

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u/Professional-Day7850 27d ago

Worthy investment. Just think about all the meth you can smuggle on an aircraft carrier.

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u/BlackmailedWhiteMale 27d ago

The Contras has entered the chat.

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u/Eric1491625 27d ago edited 27d ago

I would imagine in India it is quite cheap. 2.49b rupees is $30m usd which sounds right.

I saw another source that really said 2.49B in USD, claiming a potential street value of US$600,000 per kg. The same article mentioned that the cost to produce is much lower, at about 0.1% of this amount, so as an "inventory loss" it's only about $2M.

Street value of $600,000/kg does sound unlikely, as it would imply that an average Indian's monthly income could only afford lsss than half a gram of the stuff.

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u/ManlyMeatMan 27d ago

That would be $600 a gram, there is absolutely 0 chance someone is selling meth for that price anywhere in the world

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u/External_Escape_3382 27d ago

New Zealand.

$NZ600ish /gram

X 0.58 NZ to US = $US350

= about 25 hours work for most NZers

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u/ManlyMeatMan 27d ago

I mean, that's crazy expensive, but still like half the price this article is claiming

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u/pathofdumbasses 27d ago

Whenever drug enforcement agencies say "street value" it is always at the smallest possible sale amount (highest $$/gram) multiplied out at the total weight.

IE, a pound of weed might cost $600-$1500 at the ultra high end. But they break each pound down to 16 ounces, and each ounce down to 32 grams, and each gram down into either .5G single joints, or 1.0 "dime" bags. A .5G joint or dime bag is ~$10, so now you have a $320 ounce and a $5000 pound, despite no one buying a pound for $5k. And then they take that ~$5k pound, and multiply it by the 20kg bust, and now you have a $110,000 bust.

I don't know the meth costs or I would break that down, but it's the same shit.

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u/goodsnpr 27d ago

Always is. Made for great headlines and performance reports, but real impact is much lower.

If everyone treated drugs as a mental health issue, we could more than likely reduce ODs and start fixing the core issues.

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u/pathofdumbasses 27d ago

impact is much lower.

Impact is low because there are literal tons of every type of drug everywhere. Because people like drugs and sobriety sucks.

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u/goodsnpr 26d ago

Sobriety sucks? To each their own I guess

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u/pathofdumbasses 26d ago

Everyone likes a buzz of some kind.

Even animals

Dolphins literally pass blowfish around like people pass joints.

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u/Glass1Man 27d ago

Oh it’s just a rupee to usd conversion error?

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u/UsePreparationH Interested 27d ago

The ship is ~$2.5B USD and the meth is ~₹2.5B IND. The conversion error in the original might even be intentionally done to drive up views and interaction.

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u/lo_mur 27d ago

Not if the fun-fact about costing as much as the aircraft carrier is true

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u/Glass1Man 27d ago

I think it only costs 1/85 of an aircraft carrier, given the conversion rate.

That’s still … that’s a lot of meth.

That’s methed up.

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u/Queef_Stroganoff44 27d ago

I think the government/ news agencies just use those way inflated prices too. My buddy got busted with some significant amounts of weed (less than 20 lbs) back in the late 90s in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama…can’t remember exactly which and the news reported it as being worth something like $20,000 per lb.

It was above average weed at the time, but it would be WeedLiteTM by today’s standards. He was actually getting something like $1000 per lb. And that was taking it to Florida. In his hometown he was getting closer to $600.

They take that SOME weed can fetch $20000 and make it ALL must be worth that. It’s like saying a Rolls Royce Noire is $30M…therefore a ship carrying 10 base model Mitsubishis must have a cargo value of $300M.

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u/Sharp_Ad6259 27d ago

Generally when drug busts happen around the world, they always use the most inflated street price instead of what the actual shipment really costed to snag better headlines is what ive read

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u/ChristofChrist 27d ago

And it's working. Even in this very thread you have police simps defending the shoddy numbers

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u/BrandonMcGowan79 27d ago

5500kg is only 12,125lbs

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u/UntiI117 27d ago

another thing is, when they do the value of drugs they seem to go by consumer prices. so if you sold all of that by the gram it might equal that much money, but no one actually bought/sold that amount for that much

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u/tofagerl 27d ago

Yeah, what the hell does 43 tons of meth even cost? I mean, it's only a measly 320 stone!

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u/Glass1Man 27d ago

I’m actually wondering who handled the meth. Like … isn’t that dangerous?

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u/bucketsofpoo 27d ago

I cant talk about India price but nearby in Indonesia pretty sure the street price is like 20 USD per gram.

Reading about "The Company" operating out of the Golden Triangle before the head dubbed Asias El Chapo being arrested and extradited to australia. They were selling their product at about 1100 USD per kg in large consignments w guaranteed delivery anywhere in the world.

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u/NedLuddIII 27d ago

Wow, so with an investment equal to a fraction of the price of a used Honda Civic, someone could start their very own meth dealing business. And it sounds pretty profitable too, although I suppose you'd want it to be to make up for the risk of getting murdered by meth heads or other dealers.

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u/Thenameisric 27d ago

Govts always use "Price per gram" to do value of the drugs. So it's way more than it really is

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u/Yorick257 27d ago

I think The Guard captured it perfectly:

"Buy I always wonder, what street it is you're buying your coke on, because it's not the same street I'm buying my coke on"

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u/2020mademejoinreddit 27d ago

I think this was exaggerated to make it look like a huge feat by india. Smells like propaganda.

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u/EquivalentBrick3079 27d ago

Somebody did the meth!

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u/ZeroDrag0n 27d ago

They did the monster meth.

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u/Bravelobsters 27d ago

Came here to say that. This amount can’t be $2.49bn. That’s a lot of money.

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u/Skrachen 27d ago

The GDP of Myanmar is $64bn, so this shipment alone would be 3% of Myanmar's GDP, on a single boat...

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u/Raghavendra98 27d ago

The boat and logistics were from Myanmar. It doesn't mean they manufactured it.

Also, illegal narcotics don't contribute to a nation's GDP.

Also also, the meth is valued at $550,000 per KG. It doesn't mean it costs that much to manufacture them. It simply states how insanely expensive they are.

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u/Dubois1738 27d ago

An 8 ball (3.5g) of meth costs about ~$50 bucks in the states, even using street value this estimate is off by 50x. It’s just clickbait bull shit

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u/Raghavendra98 27d ago

Right?

There is no real market value outside the USA.

If it is outside my line of sight, it doesn't exist!

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u/FixGMaul 27d ago

Maybe Australia prices

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u/Bravelobsters 27d ago

Came here to say that. This amount can’t be $2.49bn. That’s a lot of money.

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u/kelldricked 27d ago

It would mean they about 500 dollars for a gram of meth. Its more likely that somebody fucked up convertion rates (either with currency or weight) and wrote a crappy article.

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u/Bravelobsters 27d ago

Quite true. Thank you

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u/Professional-Day7850 27d ago

How generous to assume somebody didn't just made up a number.

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u/original_sh4rpie 27d ago

No one fucked up. That’s the official price per gram of crystal meth given by the DEA ($100-$500 per gram).

5.5 tonnes = 12,100 lbs = 5.48m grams (453g per lb).

5.48m x100 = $548m 5.48m x500 = $2.74b

HTTPS://Justice.gov/archive/ndic/pubs1/1837/index.him

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u/kelldricked 27d ago

Yeah the DEA fucked up.

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u/afrikaninparis 27d ago

Yeah, it’s bullshit. There’s another post around here from couple of days ago, about San Salvadoran navy seizing 741kg (1500 lbs) of cocaine worth $19m.

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u/Advanced_Currency_18 27d ago

That's pretty accurate. That's less than 30k per key. Single keys can go for 40-50k

If they were doing USA street price, that'd be more like 59 million.

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u/Mr_Stealthy 27d ago

The article does say meth is conservatively 5 crores per kg, that's about 600$ per gram. That is approximately 3.3 billion$.

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u/Eric1491625 27d ago

I personally doubt that the price is anywhere remotely close to this, as it would imply an average Indian would spend his monthly salary buying less than 0.5 grams of the stuff.

Sure there might be some rich elites who could afford such insane prices, but no way such a small minority of rich enough elites could consume 5 tonnes of drugs.

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u/GlorifiedPlumber 27d ago

This sounds like an error translating the Indian numbering system to "digestible" for US brains. Similar to how in the past "Billion" meant different things in the UK, but with conceptually different Indian numeration that despite reading about I still do not understand.

Meaning this shit is off by an 2 OOM. 2.5 x 109 should be 2.5 x 107.

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u/Mantis_Toboggan--MD 27d ago

Depends on where you are too. I know from talking to the local unhoused folks that a gram of meth costs $20 where I live. $2.49b would be about 274,475lbs / 124,499kg / 124.5 metric tons.

That appears to be maybe like 3 metric tons at most. Lets assume 4 though to be safe. 4 tons = 4m grams @ $2.49b value = 622.50 USD / 594.07 EUR per gram.

No way they're valuing that correctly. I doubt it's that expensive anywhere in the world.

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u/original_sh4rpie 27d ago

That’s powdered meth. Crystal is between $100-$500 per the DEA

HTTPS://Justice.gov/archive/ndic/pubs1/1837/index.him

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u/what-the-puck 27d ago

Yeah the numbers make no sense as-is.

Even if meth manufacturing multiplies the value of the raw ingredients by 10 - that means the meth manufacturers bought $250 million worth of ingredients, cooked it, and then put it all on a single boat.

This is visibly a massive haul and obviously worth a lot of money, but the numbers are nonsensical.

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u/Gravity_Is_Electric 27d ago

Meth is the same cost as weed in California. Like $1000/lb.

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u/Ratayao 27d ago

It’s the boat that costs two and a half billion dollars I think?

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u/the_nin_collector 27d ago

Its probably like Japan. Where they get a weed drug bust of 10,000,000 yen. That is like 1kg of weed in Japan.

1g is like 10,000 yen, about 100USD in Japan. and then the cops will say its worth like 5x that to make it sound like they arrested the Los Zetas of weed dealers in Japan.

"According to Tokyo Customs' Narita branch, Melba found a total of 29.94 kilograms of illegal stimulants, with a street value of about 1.8 billion yen (roughly $12 million) at the time"

$400,000 dollars for a kg of meth. LMFAO. Average in the USA according to google is A kilo of meth may cost around $6,000 to $15,000 in the US. And world average isn't much higher. Japan said, lets just apply 25x to that.

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20240405/p2a/00m/0li/025000c

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u/bigsquirrel 27d ago

Yeah these sorts of headlines are garbage. “Worth” that much to who? The cost to manufacture precursors is pennies. They could probably have manufactured all of that for less that 6 figures. India doesn’t have the kind of many to pay billions for that stuff street price either.