Delhi Police Bust International Drug Racket, Seizes Over 50 Kgs of Heroin Worth Rs 250 Crore; 5 Arrested

New Delhi, May 13: An international drug racket was bused by the Delhi Police with the arrest of five men and seizure of 54.2 kilograms of heroin worth around Rs 250 crores, officials said on Thursday.

The five arrested members have been identified as Altaf alias Mehrajuddin Darji, Abid Hussain Sultan, Hashmat Mohammadi, Tifal Nau Khez and Abdullah Najibullah, they said.

The Delhi Police's Special Cell also claimed to have unearthed a drug factory in Delhi's Batla House area, officials said.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) P S Kushwah said, "Our team received information about a Kashmir-based man named Altaf, who is part of the narco-module and used to frequently visit Delhi-NCR under the cover of carpet trade.

"Acting on a tip off, a trap was laid and he was arrested with 4.5 kilograms of the contraband on May 2, after information was received that he was in Delhi's Ashoka Road area to deliver a consignment."

Based up his inputs, a raid was conducted and the second accused Abid Hussain Sultan, (40), also a resident of Srinagar, was arrested and 12 kilograms of the contraband was recovered from his home in Vinobapuri here, he said.

Elaborating about the cartel, the senior officer said with the duo's arrest, police found out about 'Haji', who was sending the contraband.

It was further refined and reconstituted using chemicals and was supplied by one 'Lakha', based out of Amritsar in Punjab, police said.

The third accused -- Hashmat Mohammadi, an Afghan national residing in the Zakir Nagar area here was arrested and five kilograms of the contraband was recovered from him, police said.

His interrogation, in turn, revealed that the contraband was being sourced from a man named Kasim, Hashmat's brother and another man named Haji. Both Kasim and Haji are based in Afghanistan, the police said.

Hashmat also disclosed that a factory was also running in Delhi's Zakir Nagar. A raid was conducted and the factory, being run under a residential cover, was unearthed, they said.

The police recovered 29.5 kilograms of the contraband along with articles used for reconstitution of the drug, including big aluminum containers, buckets, gunny bags soaked in chemical, and distillers from the factory, officials said.

The residential premises from where the factory was being operated belonged to Tifal Nau Khez, and during interrogation, he revealed that that several new poppy to heroin processing modules have become highly active in Afghanistan and are sending seasoned chemical experts to India to execute complex heroin reconstitution operations at scattered locations within Delhi-NCR, said the DCP.

In another raid conducted in the Wazirabad area, another accused Abdullah Najibullah, also an Afghan national, was arrested and another 3.2 kilograms of the contraband was recovered, he said.

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