Close on the heels of the arrests of five top drug smugglers in border zone and seizure of 27.5 kg heroin in transit from Jammu and Kashmir to Rajasthan, the Patiala Zone has now busted an international drug trafficking cartel.
Tearing apart the international synthetic drug trafficking cartel, supply chains emanating from Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi through Chennai and Mizoram up to Malaysia and European countries has also been unveiled with the arrest of eight persons from Delhi, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh.
The State Inspector General of Police, Zone-I, Patiala, Paramjit Singh Gill said that special operations were launched by the Punjab Police in the ongoing investigations being conducted in a case registered on April 16, 2013, at Fatehgarh Sahib police station.
“It came to light that an international synthetic drug trafficking network is operating from a base in Tamil Nadu and is spread out in Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi also,” said Gill.
He informed that the arrested persons are identified as R Shiva Kumar, V Venkatesh, M Prabhu alias Suresh Kumar, R V Sanmugam (Tamil Naidu), S Mani alias Rajesh (all from Chennai), Sachin Sardana, and Cerboih alias Cherry (Delhi) — a Burmese national also carrying Indian passport with name Zam Zan Iang resident of Manipur were arrested from New Delhi.
Besides, Devinder Kant Sharma, a resident of Sirsa in Haryana was arrested from Gagret in Himachal Pradesh. IGP said that the seizures of Rs 1.6 crore, 615 kg Pseudoephedrine including 8.19 lakh tablets, 6.5 kg narcotic powder, fake bills drawn on fictitious firms showing delivery of pharmaceutical medicines prepared from pseudoephedrine, one 32 bore pistol with eight cartridges, two computerized weighing machines, special packing material, a Swift Dezire Car, and Verna car have been effected from the arrested accused persons.
“Preliminary investigations disclosed that this group used to procure pseudoephedrine, ICE and other narcotic substances from Himachal and transport it by rail to Chennai, where after it was shipped to Burma and Malaysia, and, from there to European countries. Three Malaysians namely Ibrahim, Rehman and Akbar have been identified as the “end recipients” of these narcotics,” said Gill.