Cops say they smuggled contraband worth R30 cr to Australia, NZ over past year. The Crime Branch is yet to find the factory where the meow meow was manufactured. “It will be known after we arrest the mastermind,” said the officer. Jehangir is the resident of Mumbai while Senaul is the native of Malda city in West Bengal
The team that nabbed Jehangir and Senaul, leading to the arrest of other accused
The Mumbai Crime Branch Unit 9 busted an international drug trafficking racket and arrested five history sheeters who had been couriering ‘meow meow’ (mephedrone) powder to Australia and New Zealand by concealing the contraband inside the cavities of handles of plastic bristle brooms used to clean bathrooms.
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The cops have recovered over 5 kg of meow meow having a street value of over Rs 10 crore from their possession. Over the past year, the police said, the gang has couriered meow meow worth Rs 30 crore to Australia and New Zealand after sourcing it from Chennai via different routes.
“We have confiscated 52 such brooms. Each broom carried 100 gm of the drug, wrapped in a black plastic bag with the opening glued to a thick paperboard. These pouches were inserted into the cavities of handles of the brooms,” an officer explained. The officer added that it was a unique tactic used in the smuggling operation wherein the drug traffickers had used sanitary equipment to dodge police.
The packages recovered during the Crime Branch operation
The five traffickers have been identified as Jehangir Shaha Alam Shaikh, 29, Senaul Julum Shaikh, 28, Suresh Kumar Nagrajan, 40, Abdul Munab Kalim alias Yusuf alias Biji, 50 and Murusa Kulam Yakuth Ali alias Musa, 41. Some of the accused had developed their network inside Arthur Road Jail and after coming out of prison, they joined hands to run the international operation.
The Crime Branch sleuths, led by encounter specialist and Senior Police Inspector Daya Nayak, swung into action after they learnt that some people were trying to sell commercial quantities of mephedrone in the city. Since the accused had been desperately looking for a buyer, the Crime Branch laid a trap and called them to a guest house in Dadar East, where a police informer had booked a room for a meeting with the accused to seal the deal.
A large team of Crime Branch Unit 9 officers, Including PI Sachin Puranik, API Utkarsh Waze, API Mahendra Patil, PSI Sujit Mhaisdhune, and a number of police constables worked together to bust the racket.
The brooms with concealed contraband in the handles
“We wanted the accused to come to Bandra, but they feared a police crackdown. So they fixed a meeting at a guest house in Dadar East, where we reached and first arrested two people—Jahangir Shaha Alam Shaikh and Senaul Julum Shaikh. They were found to be in possession of 5.04 kg of mephedrone, which is a commercial quantity,” said a senior Crime Branch officer.
Since the guest house falls under the jurisdiction of Matunga police station, a Crime Branch officer registered an FIR under relevant sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985, and brought the arrested duo to the Bandra office for interrogation.
“During interrogation, we learnt that they had been procuring drugs from the southern part of India. So, a team was immediately dispatched and we arrested Suresh Kumar Nagrajan from Chennai in Tamil Nadu. His arrest led us to Biji, who told us that he had procured the drugs from Musa, who we subsequently arrested. Our efforts are on to arrest the mastermind, who is hiding somewhere in south India,” said another Crime Branch officer.
The Crime Branch is yet to find the factory where the meow meow was manufactured. “It will be known after we arrest the mastermind,” said the officer. Jehangir is the resident of Mumbai while Senaul is the native of Malda city in West Bengal. The other three are residents of Chennai.
Jehangir Shaikh and Senaul Shaikh
Another Crime Branch officer said that Jehangir and Senaul were imprisoned in Arthur Road Jail in connection with NDPS cases and counterfeit currency notes. “They got out of jail around a year ago and got into the drug trafficking business together,” he said.
According to the officer, the other three accused were already running the international drug operation using the same tactic before Jehangir and Senaul walked out of jail. “Since Jehangir was arrested in an NDPS case in past, the third accused Nagrajan contacted him to use his network to sell mephedrone,” the officer added.
“It was a well-organised network and the Chennai-based trio would always come to Mumbai, stay in a hotel using fake identities, and then courier the contraband using the same forged documents. “It was the reason they were never detected, because they had been concealing their original credentials at the time of sending the contraband to Australia and New Zealand,” the officer explained.
According to the police, over the past year, the gang has sent contraband worth Rs 30 crore to Australia and New Zealand. “We have procured every piece of crucial information from the courier company to make it a watertight case, as it is a case of possession of drugs for commercial quantity,” said the officer.
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