NCB searches 2 premises linked to ‘key player’ in cocaine, ketamine, meth biz

Chandigarh: The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) is conducting searches at two premises in Amritsar that are linked to a Punjab-origin Canadian who is accused of being a "key player" in drug rackets involving the manufacture and smuggling of cocaine, ketamine, methamphetamine, and hash oil in Punjab and other states.NCB began the searches at Canadian national Amrinder Singh Chhina aka Laddi Cheena's premises on Tuesday evening and the searches were still underway when this report was filed on Wednesday evening.The premises are localed at Chhina's ancestral village, Rajasansi, and Sandhu Colony in Amritsar city. The searches come at a time when Chhina's parents are visiting India, after a long absence. They arrived in India towards the end of last year. In 2015, Chhina was among 11 Punjabi NRIs against whom the CBI issued red-corner notices on a request by Punjab Police in the multi-crore Jagdish Bhola drug racket unearthed by Punjab Police. Chhina is said to have worked with Jimi Sandhu aka Slice in the past. The two men were co-accused in the drug racket with Bhola. Sandhu was shot dead outside a hotel in Phuket, Thailand, on Feb 4, 2022. Law enforcement agencies had called it the fallout of a feud between gangs involved in the illicit trade.Sandhu had reached Thailand after having been deported to India. He is an alleged member of the ‘United Nations Gang' in Vancouver and grew up in Abbotsford. He had been deported to India in 2016 for serious criminality. In between his deportation to India and killing in Phuket, Sandhu was arrested by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) in 2018 from Haryana in a drugs case where the agency made around a dozen arrests. At the time, DRI seized a large quantity of ketamine and other drugs such as cocaine, hashish and opium.Sandhu apparently got bail in that case and was said to be a frequent traveller to Thailand. As per DRI, Sandhu owned a factory in Goa where two British nationals prepared the ketamine-based drug, which was smuggled to Canada, Punjab and other places. A former Canadian soldier, Mathew Dupre, who was arrested on Feb 20, 2022, in Canada on return from Thailand and who was extradited to Thailand in May 2023, pleaded guilty to his involvement in the murder of Sandhu in 2024.