Inter-State drug dealer arrested at KIA

The dealer was on the run since 2014

Officials of Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on Tuesday arrested a Madhya Pradesh-based inter-Sate drug dealer involved in numerous cases of drug smuggling across India and neighbouring countries and was on the run since 2014.

The accused, Mohammed Yunus, 43, was nabbed at the Kempegowda International Airport by the sleuths of the NCB soon after he landed from Indore. According to the officials, Yunus was into rug trading for over a decade and amassed huge movable and immovable properties through substance smuggling and was wanted by anti-narcotics agencies and police forces across the country.

While probing a 15-kg opium case, the NCB unit Bengaluru, headed by Amith Ghawate, Zonal Director, formed a special team to track the accused .

A native of Bolia village in Mandsaur district of Madhya Pradesh, Yunus was under the radar of drug enforcement agencies in May 2013 when a team seized over 15 kg of opium during an attempt to smuggle it to the Gulf. A probe began that soon established Yunus links in smuggling opium and heroine to countries including Sri Lanka, Nepal and to the Gulf. 

The NCB team tracked him down in 2014 and tried to arrest, but he managed to escape and went underground and continued his drug operations from remote locations of MP and Rajasthan and turned a key Indian supplier for opium and heroin to his contacts in Asian countries, the officials said.

Managing to give agencies and police the slip for eight years, Yunus splurged his drug money on numerous properties, including bungalows, factories, godowns and shops across the country. With drug enforcement agencies, mainly NCB Bengaluru unit, tracking him for months and with the court permission confiscated the properties he owned one by one, forcing him to surface.

“The officers of NCB Bengaluru were monitoring his movements constantly with help of surveillance and field inputs over a period four months. It was a biggest challenge for officers to narrow down on him, as he was constantly changing his phone number and residence,” said Mr. Ghawate.

With no option available, Yunus surfaced was moving out to Bengaluru for a safe hideout when the NCB officials based on credible information that he was coming to Bengaluru pinned him down on Monday. Yunus was booked under various sections of NDPS Act and taken into custody to find out about his network and operations .