An effort to save money resulted in the arrest of Gangam Reddy, the accused in a drug trafficking case, by the Mumbai Police’s Anti Narcotics Cell (ANC) on Saturday.
Mr. Reddy (30) and his alleged accomplice, Akula Vyankateshwarulu (33), were arrested by the Ghatkopar unit of the ANC on the Sion-Panvel Highway with 180 kg of cannabis.
Investigations have indicated that Mr. Reddy has been supplying cannabis to dealers based in Mumbai, Thane, Navi Mumbai and Nashik for at least two years and has sold cannabis worth over ₹20 crore so far.
According to the ANC, after sourcing the cannabis from Vishakapatnam, Mr. Reddy would call his customers to Hyderabad to pick up their consignments, which they would take to their respective bases by road. This time, however, Mr. Reddy was compelled to come to Mumbai himself.
“Mr. Reddy’s customer based in Mumbai told him that the risk in driving such large amounts of cannabis from Hyderabad to Mumbai was too great and told him to either grant him a massive discount or bring the consignment to the city. Unwilling to compromise on his profits, Mr. Reddy chose the latter,” an officer who was part of the investigation said.
The officer said the ANC has been trying to pin down Mr. Reddy ever since his name came up in a couple of major cannabis hauls in the city last year. He is said to have been very careful, always using a middleman to handle all his affairs for him.
The missing middleman
“The middleman is very evasive, and uses multiple identities, giving a different name to each customer. Mr. Reddy and him are suspected to have been behind at least two large consignments seized last year. The first one, of 500 kg cannabis, was seized by the Azad Maidan unit in early 2018, and the other, of 200 kg, from a woman in Kandivali, who had picked it up in Hyderabad and was bringing it to the city,” another officer said.
While Mr. Reddy has claimed that he has been active for the past two years, the ANC suspects that he has been running the racket for a longer period.
“Simple logic indicates that one does not simply start supplying hundreds of kilograms of drugs overnight. Suppliers who reach Mr. Reddy’s level start out small and earn the trust of various drug dealers before they can establish a system as well organised as his. They also need to have access to large amounts of money in cash, as cash is the currency of choice in the drug underworld. Efforts are under way to trace and apprehend the middleman, who would be able to provide more information,” the officer said.
