Investigators are tracking one person – an Indian-origin British citizen – who was among the three people dispatched to India by the Dubai-based “kingpin” of an international drug cartel to handle a 518kg consignment of cocaine seized from the factory of a pharmaceutical company in Gujarat on Sunday, two special cell officers said, quoting the disclosures of the people arrested in the sensational case so far.
Two other people – Jitender Pal Singh Gill and Savinder Singh – sent to India by the alleged mastermind of the drug cartel Virender Basoiya (based out of Dubai) are among 12 arrested in the case so far, the investigators cited above said. These three people – Gill, Singh and an unnamed person – were each handling one of the three massive cocaine consignments sent to India, the officers said.
A multi-agency crackdown against an international drugs syndicate has so far resulted in the seizure of a whopping 1,288 kg of cocaine in three raids across Delhi and Gujarat over the last two weeks.
The officers said they have established the identity of the third visitor from Britain, but are not disclosing it, saying they were in the process of verifying his antecedents and that if he has left the country already.
Through this Indian-origin UK resident, the three directors of the pharmaceutical company – Aavkar Drugs Pvt Ltd – were allegedly promised ₹1 crore for storing, refining, and processing each consignment of cocaine, police officers said. One of the accused, Amit Bhai – who is among the five people arrested from Gujarat – acted as the middleman between this UK resident and the three directors of the company, a second investigator said.
The fifth arrested man, Mayur Desale, was the production head of the company and allegedly took care of processing of the contraband, the officers said.
The five people arrested from Ankleshwar in Gujarat were brought to Delhi on Tuesday, and they are being interrogated to ascertain the backward channels through which the consignment of cocaine reached them in September, the officers said.
The people cited above also said that they have learnt that at least two more consignments of cocaine were handled through two separate Gujarat-based pharmaceutical companies by the drug cartel this year.
One of them, weighing around 100kg of cocaine, was successfully trafficked, processed and routed to Punjab via Delhi in July, they said.
With this fourth consignment, and the 1,288kg of cocaine busted, it means that the cartel managed to sneak into the country around 1,400kg of the narcotic drug at least.
In the past fortnight, three separate seizures of cocaine have been reported as part of a multi-agency crackdown against the cartel. The first bust was on October 1 in Mahipalpur, where 562kg of cocaine was nabbed, while on October 10, officers recovered 208kg of cocaine packed discreetly in packets of “namkeen” in Ramesh Nagar.
“The arrival of Gill, Savinder, the third person, and even Basoiya’s son from the UK in August and September – around the time when the consignment of cocaine landed in India – has given us reasons to believe that the drug cartel has roots in the foreign country and its masterminds may be operating out from there. We got leads about two such masterminds … Rishabh was assisting Jitender Gill in Delhi, and even provided him with his uncle’s SUV that was used in the supply of the contraband,” said a senior special cell officer, requesting not to be identified.
While Gill was handling the transportation, storage, and supply of 562kg of cocaine that was seized from Mahipalpur on October 1, Savinder was given the responsibility to handle the other consignment of 208kg that was seized on October 10 from Ramesh Nagar, the officer said.
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