About month ago, a special team from the city police detected a small quantity of Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), a psychedelic drug, with a small group of engineering students.
LSD is the same drug that put Hyderabad city on the boil a few months ago and a number of film personalities, including Puri Jagannadh and Charmee, were questioned by the Prohibition and Excise Task Force.
The police team in Visakhapatnam put the students under surveillance and shadowed them to Goa and back to the city. On questioning, they revealed a nexus of drug trade from the Agency areas of Visakhapatnam to Bengaluru.
‘College dropouts’
According to the police officials, the students most of them who are dropouts from reputed colleges, have formed a group and they have a nexus with ganja traders in the Agency areas of Visakhapatnam to the LSD dealers, a few of them are Nigerian nationals, in Bengaluru and Goa.
It is learnt that the students purchase ganja, the sheelavathi variety, from the smugglers in the Agency areas and carry them to Bengaluru and Goa, where there is a demand for the hemp and sell them to buy LSD.
A senior police officer said that there are points in Araku and Paderu where ganja is sold to the prospective buyers in 2 kg packs. The students visit the points as tourists in bikes and carry them in their backpacks to the city. It is difficult to pinpoint and detect, as many bikers visit the spots, as they are popular tourists spots, said the police officer.
Sumit Bhattacharjee
