Four peddlers held in Bengaluru, drugs valued at Rs 1.25-crore seized

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Four educated young men have been arrested for peddling drugs to pub-hopping youngsters in the city and contraband valued at Rs 1.25 crore seized from them, a police officer said on Wednesday. "All four accused from Kerala were into supplying drugs procured through international couriers from Germany and Netherlands," Central Crime Branch Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Kuldeep Jain told IANS.

Accused Nitin Mohan, 29, K. Ajmal, 22, Shahad Mohammed, 24 and Ajin K.G. Varghese, 21, hold high educational qualifications like in engineering and MBA. The allegedly procured drugs from overseas locations through the dark net using bitcoins. Police seized 2,000 LSD strips, 20 ecstasy tablets, 5 kg marijuana (ganja) and 105 gm MDMA from the quartet. According to Sandeep Patil, Joint Commissioner of Police, the seized drugs are valued at Rs 1.25 crore.

Underscoring the seriousness of Karnataka government's fight against drugs, Home Minister Basvaraj Bommai and Police Commissioner Bhaskar Rao attended the press conference to announce the peddlers' arrest from Sola Devanahalli area and the seizure of narcotics. Explaining the modus operandi of the gang, the DCP said that they visited raves and pubs to establish contacts with young people interested in buying and consuming drugs.

"They generally targeted pub-hopping young people and lured them into buying LSD strips for around Rs 5,000 each and employed similar other tactics," explained Jain. Jain said that though international courier packages are scanned, there is always some loophole which the peddlers take advantage of.

Once procured from the international locations, the drugs were further divided into smaller quantities for local peddling. Police is also focusing on any nexus between disco jockeys (DJ) and peddlers as one of the arrested persons, Ajmal, was also a DJ. The DCP said police is on the job to hunt for bigger fish involved in drug supply.

He said the international drug suppliers transact in bitcoins and only deal with very exclusive contacts. All the four accused have been booked under the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act and will be produced in the court on Wednesday.

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