Two foreign nationals among 5 held with MDMA

Hyderabad: Five drug peddlers, including two foreign nationals, were arrested by the Rajendranagar and Miyapur police in separate incidents on Tuesday. Officials seized 160 gram of MDMA worth Rs 25 lakh from their possession.In the first operation, Rajendranagar police and the Hyderabad Narcotic Enforcement Wing (H-NEW) sleuths intercepted Yemeni national Al-Aqar Abdurabu Mohammed Abdurabu, 37, from Tolichowki and his associate, a Palestinian, Hasan W A Hashem, 28, resident of Bengaluru, at Mailardevpally on Tuesday evening. Police seized 150 gram of MDMA, a knife and four mobile phones from the duo.
According to Rajendranagar DCP S Srinivas, Abdurabu, who has lived intermittently in India since 2008 on student visas, sourced drugs from an absconding Nigerian supplier from Bengaluru. He was earlier booked in six NDPS cases in Telangana and Karnataka since 2019. A non-bailable warrant is also pending against him in one of those cases.Hashem came to India in 2016 on a student visa and returned to his country during the pandemic. He returned to India in 2022 on a business visa and ventured into drug peddling activities through a Sudanese national. He was arrested by Bengaluru police in 2022 in an MDMA peddling case.According to police, during judicial custody in Bengaluru in 2022, the accused met each other, and Hashem began helping Abdurabu in collecting consignments in Bengaluru and delivering them to customers in both cities. In the latest case, the duo was booked under the NDPS Act and Section 14 of the Foreigners Act by the Rajendranagar police.In another case, Miyapur Police, along with Madhapur Special Operations Team (SOT), arrested B Hanumanthu, 27, B Mahesh, 26, and K Adarsh, 28, from Miyapur, after intercepting their car near Vishwambara Colony Park on Tuesday evening. The trio attempted to escape, but the police managed to nab them. Police seized 12.6 gram of MDMA concealed in a zip-lock pouch, four mobile phones and the car. The trio confessed to having obtained the contraband in Bengaluru from an unknown supplier for resale in Hyderabad. They were booked under the NDPS Act.All five accused were remanded in judicial custody on Wednesday.