Nearly one year after the police named her as a key accused in the Rs2,000 crore Ephedrine drug haul case, a special Thane court on Tuesday declared yesteryear actress Mamta Kulkani and her Kenya-based drug smuggler Vicky Goswami as “proclaimed offenders”, in the case.
“It is pronounced and declared that the accused Vicky Goswami and Mamta Kulkarni are the proclaimed offenders. The immovable properties belonging to the accused be attached,” Special Judge H M Patwardhan ordered.
Special Judge Patwardhan, whose court deals with cases registered in Thane district under Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NPDS) Act, was hearing the case registered against 17 persons, including Mamta and Goswami, in the Rs 2,000 crore Ephedrine drug haul case. The court posted the next hearing of the case for July 10.
The judge ordered that Mamta and her drug smuggler-husband be issued standing warrants under section 82 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), which makes it mandatory on the offenders to appear before the ED within 30 days of the publication of proclamation.
However, if Mamta and Goswami fail to comply with the proceedings launched under section 82 of Cr.PC, then the Thane police have kept its open of invoking section 83 of Cr.PC to seek an order from the PMlA court to any property, both movable and immovable, belonging to him.
The Thane crime branch police had last month moved the special court seeking that Goswami and Kulkarni, be declared a proclaimed offenders and their properties be attached as they did not comply with a proclamation order issued against them requiring them to appear before the court. The investigators had sought an order from the court under section 82 of Cr PC.
Mamta (44) and her husband-cum-business partner Vicky Goswami, were named as key accused May and June last year respectively by the Thane police in the much-discussed Rs 2,000 crore Ephedrine drug haul case. There are in all 17 accused in the case. All other accused in the case have been arrested,
Within weeks after Goswami was named as accused, the Thane police on June 17 last year named Mamta as a key accused in the drug haul case, based on statements of an arrested couple recorded before a Magistrate under section 164 of the Cr PC and also inputs received from the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) about her alleged involvement in the international Ephedrine drug racket.
later on September 9 last year, Mamta vehemently denied her alleged involvement in the Rs2,000 crore Ephedrine drug scandal and said that the Thane police were “hell-bent” on framing her in the case.
“I am innocent of the accusations against me, I have never engaged in any act contrary to the principles of the Indian statutes and am a victim of highhandedness, crude, unprofessional and unethical conspiracy by the officers of DEA of the United States and Thane Police,” Kenya-based Mamta had said in a statement released through her lawyers in Mumbai.
According to the Thane police, Mamta and Vicky had attended two meetings – one in Hotel Bliss of Mombasa in Kenya on January 8, 2016 and another at Burj Khalifa in Dubai on April 8, 2016 – at which logistics of Ephedrine smuggling were discussed. At these meetings, Dr. Abdulla, two of his associates from Saburi Pharma company, some persons from India and a couple of international drug smugglers from Morocco.
It was the arrest on April 10 2016 of the Nigerian, from whom the police seized half a kilogram of the drug, that led to more arrests, a raid on Avon life Science’s unit at Solapur in Maharashtra and the subsequent busting of entire drug racket.
While the police seized 3 kg of drug from Powale and Sukhadre, they recovered 5 kg of the Ephedrine power from peddlar Swamy. The investigators seized 7.60 kg of drug from the production manager of the factory Rajendra Jagdambaprasad Dimri, while a major chunk of the 18.50 tonnes drugs recovered was seized from Solapur factory which they traced with the help of arrested earlier.
On their part, the thane police had in all seized 18.62 tonnes of Ephedrine, a medicine used to manufacture a party drug crystal meth.
Arrested in 1997 for trafficking 11.5 tonnes of mandrax valued at $ 6 million in the international market, Vicky spent 15 years in a Dubai prison. It was during his incarceration that Vicky married Mamta.
After his release from Dubai jail, Vicky reported to India for some time. He later flew to Kenya, where he is currently living in Naiborbi with his actress-wife. Considered drug kingpin is south-east Asia, Vicky is also a known name in narcotic business circles of Zamibia, where he had been arrested way back in 1983 at the lusaka Airport while boarding an international flight with a box of Mandrax tablets. Subsequently, he spent some time in Johannesburg, from where he ran drug trafficking business with the help of some of the narcotics department officials.
Mamta has been a part and parcel of Vicky’s life ever since she married the latter when he serving a 25-year sentence in a Dubai prison, a sentence that was later reduced to 15-year term. Unconfirmed reports say that Mamta used to run a prominent hotel and real estate businesses of Vicky when the latter was cooling his heels behind the bars. She also used to work as a front person for Vicky and meet with clients in Singapore, US, Dubai and South Africa when the latter had gone into hiding to avoid Interpol red corner notice issued against him.
