Punjab Police arrest Mumbai industrialist with leads from Canadian drug racket mastermind

The Punjab Police arrested a Mumbai-based pharmaceuticals industrialist and one other person during its ongoing investigations into the multi-billion rupees synthetic drugs racket, police said Friday.

Additional director general of police (ADGP) Dinkar Gupta said pharmaceuticals manufacturer Sanjay Goel of Mumbai’s Chembur area was arrested Thursday from New Delhi’s upscale Taj Palace Hotel.

He said Basant Srivastav of Vashi area in Mumbai was also arrested from there Thursday.

The arrests follow leads provided to the Punjab Police by international synthetic drug racket mastermind Devinder Singh alias Dev, a Rajasthan-based Canadian national. The Punjab Police arrested Devinder Jan 5.

The Punjab Police unearthed the over Rs.6,000-crore synthetic drugs racket (starting March last year) and made over 40 arrests.

“The Punjab Police started a two-tier interrogation of drug smugglers from Oct 14, 2013. So far, over 100 smugglers have been interrogated. These interrogations have yielded valuable information about the various cogs in the different drug networks to enable the Punjab Police to smash the networks from source of supply to the distribution network. The focus was not limited to Punjab. Networks operating in other parts of the country are also being detected and action being taken,” Gupta said.

He said precursor chemicals katamine, ephedrine and pseudoephedrine were procured by the drug racketeers from Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi and other places and smuggled into Canada. “The processing of the precursor chemicals to manufacture synthetic drugs was done mainly in Canada by Chinese and Vietnamese nationals,” he added.

Gupta said Goel is the owner of the Sanvin Group, which comprises six companies in the pharmaceuticals, chemicals and export sectors.

He said investigations revealed the Mumbai module provided 4,500 kg of precursor chemicals katamine to Devinder.

After obtaining search warrants, two factories will be searched SaturdAY.—IANS