27 May,2015 11:40 AM IST | | Vinay Dalvi
DRI officials followed one of the main operatives for nearly a fortnight, in order to narrow down on the factory in Rajasthan manufacturing the drug in inter-state racket spanning Maharashtra, Gujarat as well
Busting an inter-state drug racket spanning across Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra, officials seized 240 kg of mephedrone, popularly known as meow meow, in a factory raid at Mount Abu on Monday. The total haul is valued at approximately Rs 24 crore. The authorities also arrested the three operatives running the drug trade.
Also Read: As sales spike destroys Mumbai's youth, Meow Meow to be banned soon (This story by Vinod Kumar Menon won the prestigious Red Ink Award for Crime reporting)
After following one of the accused for nearly 15 days, the officials raided the factory where the drug was being manufactured
Based on a tip-off, the Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Jaipur teams from the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) raided the premises of a factory registered under Rishi Minechem Private Limited in Mount Abu, Rajasthan, where they recovered around 218 kg of meow meow.
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The DRI officials said that this drug was carted to Ahmedabad and Mumbai for sale. The authorities first uncovered the racket by tracking one of the main operatives one Ratilal Patel, who would ferry the deadly drug to Mumbai and Ahmedabad.
mid-day's in-depth coverage led to the govt finally banning the drug which was earlier freely available. Read the story here
"We followed his movements for some time as we didn't want to stop at arresting him, but wanted to seize the whole factory instead," said a DRI official, on condition of anonymity, adding that they followed Patel's movements for 10 to 15 days. They also learnt of the involvement of Mohan Ainani, who purchased Rishi Minechem as a sick unit to manufacture the drug.
The officers also arrested one Omprakash, a chemist in Ahmedabad, who would stock the merchandise. Apart form the 218 kg seized from the factory, 16 kg of the drug was recovered from Patel's house in Ahmedabad and another 6 kg from his car.
"They were manufacturing the drug under the pretext of manufacturing chemicals. When we raided the premises, they panicked and started running, but we managed to arrest three people and seize the drugs," said the official.
