Telangana: Narcotic crook’s dalliance with meow meow foxes DRI

HYDERABAD: Arrest of B Venkat Reddy recently for the second time in a span of three years for producing commercial quantity of narcotics has baffled Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) sleuths. The master manufacturer of narcotics, who was arrested twice earlier on the charge of producing ephedrine, has now upgraded himself to produce mephedrone, also known as poor man’s coke, for sale in the country’s commercial capital and export to South East Asian countries and Australia. He was arrested in the third week of August.
Venkat Reddy, 51, who according to DRI, a diploma holder, worked in several pharma companies located on the outskirts of the city before venturing into manufacturing narcotics.

As per DRI records, he was caught by the Cyberabad police in 2013 for manufacturing ephedrine at a chemical firm in Chandanagar along with a family member.
Subsequently, the DRI Hyderabad unit had arrested Venkat Reddy in 2017 November for manufacturing ephedrine at a chemical factory in the city outskirts at an industrial area in Sangareddy district. After spending close to eight months in prison, Reddy was released on bail. In July-August 2020, a DRI Mumbai team got wind of mephedrone peddling activity after lockdown and zeroed in on certain peddlers, the trail lead to busting of a distributor centre set up in a house in Mumbai and from there to a chemical factory in Jinnaram area on the outskirts of the city.
Like in previous two cases, according to investigators, Venkat Reddy leased equipment of a factory in the guise of manufacturing certain legal, but started manufacturing narcotics.
“The first two batches of mephedrone he attempted to make before the lockdown didn’t come out well. The next batches he made post lockdown period were close to fine quality (over 200 kilos) and he started sending them to a distributor in Mumbai,” a DRI official said.
Venkat Reddy told the investigators that he quickly disposes drugs like mephedrone for Rs 1 lakh to Rs 1.5 lakh a kilo, which later sells at Rs 25 lakh a kilo in international markets of Malaysia, Australia and Thailand. “All payments take place through hawala channels,” an investigator said.
DRI believes that Reddy had learnt the cooking, which requires a lot of skill set ranging from procurement of precursors, maintaining and varying temperatures and humidity for specific amounts of time, from a Mumbai-based expert. DRI sleuths, who cited Reddy’s crime history before the court, were baffled why a man in his early 50s, with school-going children, would risk his life by again resorting to manufacturing narcotics.