Two men, one from Kolkata and another from Delhi, were arrested while unearthing a vast drug trafficking operation that spread across North India with a firm base in Shimla, the capital of Himachal Pradesh.
Superintendent of Police (SP) Shimla Sanjeev Kumar Gandhi said that the syndicate was a well-organised supply chain that used online platforms for booking. To include financial transactions, we would have had to set up accounts for innocent people to use, which would be used by fraudsters to hide their handiwork, while drugs are delivered secretly to buyers and not to sellers directly by means of couriers to avoid face-to-face contact.
The racket was arrested earlier this month after Sandeep Shah, an interstate drug kingpin, was arrested in Kolkata. Through a large interstate drug nexus, Shah was responsible for supplying chitta (adulterated heroin). His associate Neeraj Kashyap, a Mehrauli man in South Delhi, was also arrested.
From Kolkata, he sold drugs over virtual phone numbers and used social media to connect with clients. It was all communicated on WhatsApp, and money was paid out using Unified Payment Interface (UPI) transfers into unsuspecting people’s bank accounts. After verification of transactions, deliveries were executed near the buyer’s location using drop points, keeping the buyer from directly exchanging with a seller.
Roughly 500 people are on this network, operating through a version of relay-style delivery, SP Gandhi said. Suppliers are paid, and they share exactly where they deposited the packages using photos and GPS coordinates. The police also added that the quantity of 5 grams of heroin is acceptable to eat while 250 grams is considered to be a commercial quantity. Slashing drugs into consumable or even tiny pieces means they are bailable offensives, and traffickers often employ this method, for it’s as easy as distributing drugs in smaller amounts.
Caffeine, for instance, has chitta priced between ₹4,000 to ₹6,000 per gram, which drives addicts to recruit their fellows to expand the supply chain. Authorities, meanwhile, are now putting their efforts on the dismantling of the network, targeting peddlers and choking the junk at the same time.
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