An interstate drug racket has been busted in Hyderabad and eight people have been arrested in this connection, the Hyderabad Narcotic Enforcement Wing (H-NEW) said on Thursday, September 1. The prime accused were using the dark web for drug supplies with the help of social networks, cryptocurrency (single-use crypto wallets) and other hidden apps to facilitate door-delivery of the substances, police found. Investigation revealed that nearly Rs 45 lakh worth of transactions were made by the two main accused using cryptocurrency throughout India for drug trafficking. The sleuths seized 140 grams of charas/hash, 1450 grams of ganja, 184 blots of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and 10 grams of MDMA or ecstasy, and cell phones worth Rs 9 lakh in total, an official release said.
As of Thursday, 30 drug consumers who were purchasing the narcotic substance from the accused were identified and a probe is underway to identify others, the release added. While the two main accused are residents of Goa and Rajasthan, the other six persons are residents of Hyderabad. Three separate cases were registered against the accused at Humayunnagar, Chaderghat and Jubilee Hills police stations.
According to the police, one of the main accused Narendra Arya, who hails from Haryana and lives in Goa, has been trafficking drugs on the dark web over the past year. With nearly 450 consumers across the country, he allegedly made transactions worth nearly Rs 30 lakh in cryptocurrency for trafficking drugs. The other prime accused Farhad Mohd Ansari from Madhya Pradesh, who lives in Rajasthan, is a B Tech final year student, police said.
He had been using courier services and India Post to deliver the drugs to customers’ homes in neatly packed boxes, police said, adding that he had transacted around Rs 15 lakh in cryptocurrency for trafficking drugs. The accused drug peddlers from Hyderabad had been purchasing drugs from the two main accused and allegedly supplying them to consumers in the city, for cash-on-delivery in some instances.
Sharing details of the case with the media on Thursday, Hyderabad Commissioner of Police CV Anand said that the main accused Narendra Arya was among many drug peddlers operating out of Goa. He said that a Goan newspaper had recently reported that H-NEW had been successful in nabbing drug peddlers from the state but the Goa police and state government have been unable to solve the death case of BJP leader Sonali Phogat. Anand said that some of the accused in the Hyderabad case were also associated with others named in connection with the Sonali Phogat case, and the information helped them nab drug peddlers from Goa. Anand also said that the Goa police didn't cooperate with H-NEWt and that the Hyderabad police always got a negative result when they sought information from them.
With PTI inputs