The special operations team of L.B. Nagar zone along with Medipally police have arrested three persons and seized 1.24 tonnes of ganja on Monday. Three others, including the prime organiser, have managed to escape the police raid.
The contraband, the police said, was purchased at ₹ 8,000 per kilogram from a supplier at Sileru village of Visakhapatnam, and was being packed into smaller packages to be sold at ₹ 15,000 per kilogram. Thus, an estimated ₹ 1.86 crore worth psychotropic drug was seized from entering the distribution market.
Rachakonda Police Commissioner Mahesh M. Bhagwat presented the three nabbed accused and displayed about 500 brown-taped packages and loose ganja before media persons on Monday.
The accused Shaik Yaseen, a seasoned travels agent from Nacharam, had developed a wide circle of acquaintances in Sileru agency and made ganja smuggling to Hyderabad and Maharashtra his main business.
Mr. Bhagwat further explained that Yaseen used the auto garage of one S. Vasudeva Reddy at Medipally as the ganja dispatch hub and his worker P. Rajeshwar as the keeper. Three other persons were hired as drivers who were paid ₹ 20,000 per trip from the origin to the hub.
Their illegal business has been running successfully almost for a year now. The fresh load of ganja was sourced from Sileru last week and was ready in packages and loaded in three vehicles for distribution by Sunday.
The commissioner said a specific input from the Intelligence Department helped the joint team to plan and execute the raid in the early hours of Monday. In all, 573 packets of 1, 230 ganja, 10 kg loose ganja, three vehicles used to smuggle the packages and other materials were seized.
All the six persons in the network, including drivers T. Santosh, C. Ravinder and M. Madhu, residents of Boduppal, Dammaiguda and Nacharam, were booked under related provisions of Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (Amendment) Act.