Gujarat: Anti-terrorist squad detains 6 over 225-kg mephedrone seizure

AHMEDABAD: Officers of the Gujarat anti-terrorist squad (ATS) on Wednesday said they have detained six persons in connection with the seizure of 225kg of mephedrone worth Rs 1,125 crore during a raid on an under-construction factory near Vadodara city.
The seized mephedrone was manufactured at a factory in Saykha village of Bharuch district before being processed at the facility in Savli taluka of Vadodara district, said ATS superintendent of police Sunil Joshi.
"Based on a tip-off, a team of Gujarat ATS led by DySP K K Patel raided the Savli factory-cum-warehouse on Tuesday morning and seized 225kg of mephedrone, worth Rs 1,125 crore in the international market," he said.
"The Savli factory is owned by a Surat resident, Mahesh Vaishnav, the mastermind of the racket, and his Vadodara-based partner, Piyush Patel. Earlier this year, Vaishnav came up with the idea of manufacturing mephedrone and contacted the owners of the factory in Saykha," Joshi said.
That factory in Bharuch is owned by Rakesh Makani, Vijay Vasoya and Dilip Vaghasia. It was set up to manufacture chemical intermediates and pharmaceutical products on contract basis for other companies.
Makani, who has an MSc in chemistry and has been in the pharma business since 2011, agreed to Vaishnav's proposition and started manufacturing mephedrone in January this year. The raw materials were supplied by Vaishnav.
"Vaishnav then brought liquid mephedrone from Bharuch to his facility in Savli and turned it into powder form. He confessed to having supplied 15kg of mephedrone to one Dinesh Dhruv of Jamnagar and a father-son duo named Ibrahim Odia and Baba Odia of Mumbai and 15kg to a man from Rajasthan. The rest has been seized by the ATS," said Joshi.
ATS has so far detained Vaishnav, Patel, Makani, Vasoya, Vaghansia and Dhruv.
Dhruv had arranged a meeting between Vaishnav and Rakesh Makani. Dhruv had spent 12 years behind bars after being arrested in a Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act case in 1994.
Similarly, Vaishnav had spent seven years in jail after his arrest by customs in 1998 from Bhavnagar in a drug smuggling case, Joshi said.
Mephedrone is a synthetic stimulant banned under the NDPS Act.