NEW DELHI: In the biggest drug bust in its history, Delhi Police's special cell has seized 354kg of grade A
heroin worth a staggering Rs 2,500 crore in the international market. Four key members of a cartel, including a chemical expert who turned crude powder into pure heroin, have been arrested.
The network is spread across several countries with kingpins based in Canada, Portugal and Afghanistan and multiple modules are active in India to carry out narco-terrorism activities in the country, the cops said.
The cartel, investigations have revealed, was importing under the cover of legitimate goods like talc stone, gypsum powder and basil seeds, packed in material like gunny bags, cartons etc. It was then transported in containers to Iran’s Chabahar port.
"From there, the consignments containing the contraband were shipped to
Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust
, Mumbai. Thereafter, the material was separated from the legitimate consignments and sent to makeshift factories,"
DCP
(special cell) Pramod Kushwaha told TOI. Special chemical experts from Afghanistan were then roped in to process the contraband and turn it into pure and saleable heroin.
One such processor, Hazrat Ali from Kandahar, is among those arrested. His associate, Rizwan Kashmiri from Anantnag, has been arrested as well apart from two members of the Punjab wing of this cartel. About 100kg of the chemical used to turn crude contraband into pure heroin has also been seized.
The operation was conducted by
ACPs Lalit Mohan Negi
and Hriday Bhushan from the New Delhi range of the cell. The team had busted a similar module in 2019. Developing leads which had stemmed from that operation,
ACP Negi
learned that a suspect named Rizwan was dealing in drugs across Delhi and Madhya Pradesh.
On July 5, specific information was received about Rizwan's movements in Ghitorni area of south Delhi. Inspector
Vinod Badola
,
SI Sundar Gautam
and others laid a trap and arrested the suspect with 1kg of heroin. However, this turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg. During interrogation, Kashmiri allegedly revealed that he worked under the command of an Afghan national, Isha Khan, who recently left India and is now based in Afghanistan.
Khan had directed Kashmiri to contact two men, Gurpreet Singh and
Gurjot Singh
, both residents of Punjab, who were operating a drug racket from
NSG Vihar Coop Housing Society
in Sector 65, Faridabad. A raid was conducted and both were apprehended.
The two led the cops to two cars — Verna and Amaze — having 166kg and 115kg of heroin, respectively. Further, 70kg of the substance was seized from the bed box of their flat, leaving the cops stunned over the scale of recovery.
The two men have claimed that they work for a Portugal-based handler named Navpreet Singh. Gurpreet had met him when the two were lodged in Kapurthala jail in a drugs case. Navpreet works in coordination with his counterparts in Afghanistan, Iran and Canada.
Meanwhile, based on Rizwan's disclosure, the cops arrested Hazrat Ali and seized chemicals and heroin from him as well. Ali and others were part of the chemical module of this syndicate and were operating from makeshift factories in different states, the biggest of them being in Shivpuri, Madhya Pradesh, at present.
"The locals, with the help of Afghan experts, process the heroin and the various chemicals required for this are procured by the network members from various chemical shops located in MP and Delhi. After preparation, the heroin is delivered to Punjab, Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan J&K and various other parts of India using different supply chains," DCP Kushwaha said.
The arrested people are parts of different components of this network. This module is suspected to be part of a bigger network. Police commissioner Balaji Srivastava is learned to have formed a special team to unearth the entire nexus. Efforts are on to track the source based in Afghanistan in coordination with intelligence agencies apart from tracing conduits active at the Mumbai port and others parts of the country.