The Department of Narcotics Control (DNC) has seized a large quantity of shisha and arrested three people in four coordinated overnight raids.
Officials say 65.9kg of shisha, 41 hookahs, 40kg of charcoal used for shisha smoking and five mobile phones were recovered during the operation in Dhaka.
At a press briefing at the DNC headquarters on Friday, Additional Director (Intelligence) Md Badruddin said the coordinated operation was carried out in Gulshan and Bhatara.
Badruddin described it as “the largest quantity of shisha ever recovered in a single operation in Bangladesh”.
He said the arrestees included two brothers, Ahmed Sharifi, 34, and Mehdad Sharifi, 34, whom investigators identified as the leaders of an inter-district online drug network, along with another suspect, Maksud Alam.
According to him, Ahmed and Mehdad learnt the shisha business while living in Iran before returning to Bangladesh and launching the operation.
He said the brothers had long been using Facebook to sell and distribute illegal shisha and related smoking accessories to customers in Dhaka and elsewhere across the country.
The DNC said investigators, led by Deputy Director Mehedi Hasan, launched the operation on Thursday after receiving information that two consignments of shisha ordered through a Facebook page were being shipped to customers by courier.
The first parcel, containing 1kg of shisha, was seized in the Bashundhara Residential Area.
Officers later intercepted a second parcel containing another 1kg of shisha in Malibagh.
After verifying the sender's address, investigators raided a flat in Kalachandpur later that day and arrested the two brothers, Badruddin said.
Based on information obtained during questioning, officers searched the flat and recovered a further 45.9kg of shisha and 20 hookahs.
Badruddin said the brothers told investigators they sourced much of their stock from Maksud.
Acting on that information, officers raided a flat near Noorerchala under Bhatara Police Station, arrested Maksud and recovered another 18kg of shisha and 21 hookahs.
The additional director said the Sharifi brothers had spent many years in Iran, where they gained experience of the shisha trade, its market and supply chain.
After returning to Bangladesh, they adopted the same business model to build an online shisha sales network and gradually expanded their operations to several districts across the country, he added.