Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) officers on Wednesday arrested Sada, alias Sadanand, 55, a close associate of Jaffer Sadiq, alias Bezo, the mastermind behind an international drug syndicate which had allegedly smuggled pseudoephedrine worth ₹2,000 crore to Australia, New Zealand and other countries in the guise of food products.
Jaffer Sadiq, 36 was arrested by the NCB in New Delhi last Saturday and is being interrogated in custody.
The multi-crore drug smuggling came to light following information from the Australia and New Zealand authorities about the consignments of drugs in the guise of food products like health mix powder and desiccated coconut sent to their countries from New Delhi.
In mid-February, a joint investigation by the NCB and the Delhi Police led to a godown of a firm, named Aventa, at Basai Darapur, West Delhi, where three men were packing pseudoephedrine in a cover consignment of multigrain food mix. The joint team recovered 50.070 kg of pseudoephedrine and arrested the three operatives.
Subsequently, the NCB declared that Jaffer Sadiq is the mastermind of the network. It is suspected that the drug syndicate operated by him has sent 45 consignments over the past 3 years to various countries, containing approximately 3,500 kg of pseudoephedrine. After two weeks of search, Jaffer Sadiq was arrested.
A team of NCB officers on Wednesday morning arrested Sada alias Sadanand, who was an associate of Sadiq and native of Tiruchi. He used to pack the drug consignments in the guise of food products for Sadiq and the NCB also detected a godown which was used by them. More arrests are likely in the case, said sources in NCB.
