BENGALURU: Junkies in the city have been signing up for specially curated travel packages. Organisers of these tours supply the illegal drugs, tickets to rave parties, stay and return tickets.
Bhuvan (name changed) who has been active as a dealer in the city says that many of these trips start from MG Road. “On weekends you will find people waiting to board buses to Hampi or Gokarna, the usual destinations,” he says. Bengaluru is also a destination on such travel packages for users from Kerala and other southern states.
“Bengaluru is where you get psychotropic drugs in plenty,” says Honey K Das, a sub-inspector attached to the Kerala Shadow Police, the team which had recently nabbed two people in Kochi for operating such tours.
“You get new generation drugs in the city such as LSD and MDMA. While in Kerala, you may get stamps that carry drops of acid, in Bengaluru you get the liquid itself that you can then add to candy or any such carrier,” says the officer.
Bengaluru’s DCP Crime Jinendra Khanagavi says that he has not heard of these tours and the police will now look into them.
There is an urgency because nearly sixty to seventy per cent of the travellers are between 18 to 24 years, says Bhuvan. A good number is also pre-university and college students.
Each trip easily has two to three buses full of people and it costs Rs 25,000 to Rs 30,000 per head, if travel and accommodation is covered, and falls steeply to Rs 3,000 or Rs 3,500 if it is only for “a drop of acid and entry into the party”.
“There may be 100 to 600 people in each ‘crew’ (or trip) and they could be paying in rates varying with what they want. They can choose from three options usually… MDMA, LSD or cocaine,” says Bhuvan. “On the tour will be the main head who has organised it, his druggie-assistants and his competitors.”
The organiser travels with his competitors because the drug cartel in Bengaluru works as a ‘belt’. “Instead of working against each other and risking betrayal, they work together as a belt,” says Bhuvan.
Every trip, in peak season which falls between August and March, Bhuvan claims that an organiser can even make Rs 1.5 crore in profit. ‘Promoters’ are also roped in by the organisers and their job is to spread the word. “They slip into other parties, try a line of MDMA in and announce that the stuff is great, and it is from Denmark… foreign stuff commands more money in the market. If any party goer shows any interest, the promoter will tell them about the tour and how to join it. All the while no one knows that the promoter has been employed by the organiser,” says Bhuvan.
You don’t have to pay much to employ a promoter. “Rs 350 a day,” says Bhuvan. “They are usually foreigners whose travel visa has expired or college students.”
Parties are held in private properties and the stay is generally in tents pitched in the open. “They are usually held in forested places,” he says.
Das, who is investigating these tours and networks that operate them, says that usually customers are found through Whatsapp groups. “They send it to one person they know, who will forward it to various groups,” he says. “Earlier they used Facebook, then the police cracked down on that.”
Crackdowns do not seem to have cut into the clientele. Bhuvan himself is surprised at the rise in numbers at a recent rave party. “Two years ago, at this party in Goa, there were 2,000 participants. In 2017, they sold out more than 5 lakh tickets,” he says. “There were even children from secondary school”.
Solo travellers
Many drug addicts travel solo in search of a shot or a snort. Kenny John (name changed) recalls lying to family to travel to Andhra Pradesh, Chennai and Manali for the next hit. He says, "This was about 20 to 25 years ago. I learned through my friends where you can find drugs in Andhra Pradesh. When you are an addict, you go to any extent to get them."
Kenny has recovered from his addiction now. Another survivor Anita Mehra (name changed) adds that it is easy to get drugs in Mumbai and Chennai. She used to go weekends, taking a bus or a flight.
"In Mumbai, you can find boys selling them in front of a railway station. Many cab drivers also know where to go and will offer to take oyu." In Chennai, she has a friend who used to take her to buy drugs.