Alipore: A US Drug Enforcement Administration team visited the CID headquarters at Bhabani Bhawan on Tuesday to interrogate five Chinese arrested with synthetic drugs worth about Rs 40 crore.

Three sleuths spent more than three hours at the office, collecting details of the role of the five in supplying drugs to India and other countries, a CID officer said.

The five, originally from the Guangzhou province of China, were picked up from Calcutta station on June 29.

At least 197kg of amphetamine, a stimulant drug that provides a feeling of euphoria, stored in six bags were found on them, the CID officer said.

"Recently, similar drugs were seized in several places in the US... so, the DEA sleuths wanted to interrogate them," the officer said. "They had an interpreter with them so that language was not a barrier."

The DEA team arrived from the administration's Delhi branch, the officer said.

They returned to Delhi in the evening. The CID officer said the Americans could return to interrogate the men again.

The arrest of the five led the CID to raid a house in Murshidabad's Naoda.

"The single-storey building was known to be a charcoal manufacturing unit. Our raid revealed the five Chinese manufactured drugs in the building with the help of some youths," another officer said.

The five, aged between 30 and 37, had visited India last year and the year before that, he said. Some central agencies have turned up at the CID's headquarters in the past week to interrogate the men.

Sleuths of the Narcotics Control Bureau and the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau have interrogated the men.

Turtle rescued

Tehatta High School authorities in Nadia's Tehatta handed over a turtle to the forest department on Tuesday. The turtle had strayed into a classroom on Monday.