A 31-year-old farmer who has won a government award for young farming has been arrested in Keralam, with Ernakulam Rural police alleging that his banana business doubled as a front for drug trafficking.
Dhanesh S. Nair, known as Dani, was picked up in Angamaly. Police said they seized 803g of suspected hashish oil and eight grams of suspected MDMA from him on Monday.
Officers said Mr. Nair belongs to Haripad in Alappuzha district, though one report places his home in Payippad nearby, and that he had been living near Nanjangud in Mysuru, Karnataka, where he ran banana cultivation and other agricultural ventures. He is said to have studied agribusiness in Germany from 2015 to 2018, returned to Kerala during the floods of 2018 and turned to farming afterwards.
The case grew out of the arrest of Harikrishnan K.S., 32, of Palluruthy in Kochi, who was reportedly found with 185g of suspected MDMA at a lodge in Aluva. A special investigation team detained Mr. Nair on arrival in Angamaly. Reports differ on who headed that team: the Ernakulam Rural district police chief, K.S. Sudarshan, is named in one version, the Aluva deputy superintendent, Baiju Paulose, in another.
Police reportedly recovered videos from his mobile phone showing ways of wrapping drugs and concealing them inside banana bunches, and say he trained others in the method. Consignments were allegedly moved to Kerala posing as farm produce, while young recruits distributed the drugs in Bengaluru and nearby areas before the stock reached dealers and consumers in Kerala, according to the police.
His award is also described in different terms, as a Haripad-level best young farmer honour in 2022 in one account and as a state award for the best young farmer in Alappuzha district in another. One report adds that he featured on an agriculture department programme.
Investigators had earlier arrested Shinu Sebastian, 34, of Thoppumpady, who was reportedly found with 7g of suspected MDMA, and who was held on information provided by Mr. Harikrishnan, according to reports. Police suspect that Mr. Harikrishnan and Mr. Sebastian acted on instructions passed by Mr. Nair over social media, one report specifying Instagram, and that the two collected payments from customers and forwarded the money to him.
One report describes Mr. Nair as the alleged linchpin of a network that supplied large quantities of MDMA to Kerala from Bengaluru. According to reports, the arrest followed scrutiny of the Aluva suspect's mobile phone, after which the district police chief ordered the investigation widened to Tamil Nadu and Karnataka; officers from the Angamaly and Nedumbassery stations were part of the team. None of the allegations has been independently verified.
(With inputs from media reports)