Mumbai News

Rs 20-crore cocaine smuggling ring busted, Africans among 4 held – Times of India

MUMBAI: The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) has busted an international drug racket and seized half a kg of cocaine worth Rs 3-4 crore that was smuggled into the country in an iron through a courier service from Trinidad and Tobago. Officials said the syndicate had cleared multiple consignments of cocaine, totalling over 3.3kg since August, with a market value of over Rs 20 crore.
Four persons, including two Indian women and two Africans, were arrested from Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Rajasthan under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, and searches are on in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai, said an official.
Cocaine smuggled in iron through courier service
The Indian women who are among the four arrested by the DRI in the cocaine smuggling racket have been identified as Sania Khan and Hazel Correa.
While three of the accused were remanded in judicial custody till December 3, one who was arrested in Rajasthan is being brought to Mumbai on a transit remand.
Sources said DRI, Mumbai, received an intelligence input from “a reliable source” about cocaine being smuggled to Mumbai from Trinidad and Tobago through courier services. An operation with the code name Calypso ensued for three days, with DRI intercepting a woman who had come to collect a parcel that had arrived from Trinidad and Tobago in a Mumbai suburb. “We first intercepted the consignment and ascertained the presence of cocaine and then kept a discreet watch. When a woman came to pick up the consignment on November 17, we apprehended her,” said an officer.
Sources said that after collecting the parcel, the woman was to deliver it to two South African nationals in Navi Mumbai. DRI deployed several teams in Navi Mumbai, laying a trap with the apprehended woman. To make it look realistic, the woman was sent under supervision to the designated spot in an app cab.
While the woman waited for her contacts, a DRI team kept watch, hiding close by. After nearly an hour, a man approached the woman’s cab. When he claimed the parcel, he was overpowered by DRI officers. The man later turned out to be an African national. Seeing his arrest, his accomplice, waiting at a distance, fled in an autorickshaw. DRI officials gave him a 2km chase and arrested him.
Questioning of the two led the investigators to the key accused, a woman who was holidaying in Rajasthan. She was arrested from a three star hotel in Udaipur, on Wednesday morning with the help of local police, a DRI official said.
The seized drug was smuggled in an iron through a courier service. In March, state home minister Anil Deshmukh said that the use of courier services to transport drugs had become a new challenge in controlling the menace. “This is an issue before the authorities, whether it is customs, DRI or NCB,” he told the state council replying to a calling attention motion raised by Congress MLC Anant Gadgil. Deshmukh had also said that Thane and Navi Mumbai were hubs of the drug trade.

Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/rs-20-crore-cocaine-smuggling-ring-busted-africans-among-4-held/articleshow/79313461.cms