The excise crime branch probing the seizure of over 1 kg of MDMA from an apartment in Kakkanad on Tuesday made one more arrest.
The arrested man was identified as Shifan Taj, 23, a resident of Amballur near Kanjiramattom. He reportedly transferred a sizeable amount to the bank account of one of the accused. It, the excise suspects, was used to fund the drug smuggling. He was remanded in judicial custody.
The accused is suspected to have transferred over ₹2 lakh to the bank account of one of the six accused already arrested and remain in judicial custody. Since the arrested could not give a satisfactory explanation about the transfer, he was arraigned as an accused under the NDPS Act on charges of conspiracy.
The investigation has been revolving around the bank transactions to find the involvement of more people in the case. The idea is to identify the suppliers and buyers of the accused in and outside the State.
The team is looking to track down those who have had financial dealings with the accused persons based on bank transactions. A list of the suspects has been drawn up in this connection. The excise suspects that the gang, allegedly part of the inter-State drug peddling network, had several customers.
Though the investigation team has traced the supply of the drug to Triplicane in Chennai, it remains yet to be confirmed whether the drug was domestically manufactured or smuggled in from other countries.
