Atala in Goa police net with drugs worth Rs 8.7 lakh

Panaji: Yaniv Benaim alias Atala, an Israeli, was arrested by Goa police for allegedly possessing narcotic substances worth Rs 8.7 lakh illegally.
The anti-narcotic cell (ANC) of Goa police conducted a search at Siolim and arrested Atala, an alleged drug dealer, with 50gms of cocaine and 110gms of charas.
Superintendent of police (SP) Tikam Singh said Atala was remanded in five days of police custody.
Singh said that Atala was under the ANC radar for many days. “After zeroing in on the intelligence gathered, the ANC team stormed the rented residence of Atala at Siolim and seized cocaine and charas from his possession. Surprisingly, this is the first time the Israeli was caught with drugs in his possession,” Singh said.
The ANC is verifying whether the Israeli has valid documents to stay in Goa and whether he is involved in any other business.
Atala, who was staying in Goa since 2006, was arrested in 2010 by Goa police in an alleged police-politician-drug mafia nexus case and was extradited from Peru in 2011.
The cases were handed over to CBI after the high court of Bombay at Goa disposed of then NSUI chief Sunil Kawathankar’s petition seeking the same.
The CBI, which was investigating the police-politician-drug mafia case, dropped charges of any involvement in the drug trade against Atala in Dec 2015.
Atala claimed on camera that he was paying the ANC “chief”, who regularly sold him drugs seized from raids and even drugs deposited with the magistrate. The video was uploaded on a social networking site in April 2008.
In April 2019, Anjuna police booked Atala along with two others for assaulting a Russian but did not verify at the time whether he had a valid visa. Later, he was arrested by Uttarakhand police for overstaying.