Nepal’s Narcotics Control Bureau arrested a Myanmar woman, Jin Jin Phyo, at a hotel in Sohrakhutte, Kathmandu, where she was staying, and also arrested Barkatullah and Yusuf Khan, both from Gorakhpur in India, in the same ganja case.[1] Officers found hydroponic ganja in Phyo’s suitcase.[1] She had reached Kathmandu on a Pacific Airways flight from Vietnam, via Hong Kong.[1] The two arrested Indians, Barkatullah and Yusuf Khan of Gorakhpur, had been given the job of taking the ganja on to Delhi and the National Capital Region.[1]

The arrest features in a wider account of smugglers flying higher-priced hydroponic ganja from Thailand to Kathmandu and then bringing loads by road across the open border at Sonauli and other Maharajganj and Siddharthnagar crossings towards Delhi and Punjab.[1] Jagran reports that the trade has picked up since Nepal’s Supreme Court ordered limited licences for hemp production in May 2025, with a detailed order issued the previous week under the 1976 law.[1] Nepal’s western hills, central Nepal and the Tarai districts bordering India are still used for cultivation without permits, according to the newspaper.[1]

Both countries’ authorities met in Kathmandu on a strategy to stop the smuggling, according to the page.[1]