KOCHI: The special drive by the City police shadow wing has yet again highlighted the issue of the spike in peddling of high-end drugs here. In the latest incident, the kingpins of the drug racket supplying LSD stamps were arrested barely a day after the sleuths seized LSD stamps worth nearly `2 lakh.
What has set off alarm bells is as many as 40 persons have been arrested under the NDPS(Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances) Act since June 1 when the special monsoon drive was launched. The high point of the operation was the arrest of the racket’s linchpins - Perumbavoor native Muhammed Jabreel, 23, and his aide Shiraz, 28 - from Aluva the other day.
“The shadow sleuths come across 10-15 NDPS cases daily. On some days, the cases numbered more than 20,” said ACP (Crime Detachment) Biji George, who is in-charge of the Shadow police wing.
Jabreel alias Orlando is a degree first-year student of the AR Rahman College of Music and Technology in Chennai. Officers said he used to pick up the contraband from drug dealers in Mumbai, Chennai, Goa and Bengaluru. “He had smuggled about 170 LSD stamps and bottles of hashish oil to the state in the last three weeks alone,” said an officer. Police seized several stamps from the arrested duo.
The duo used to purchase the contraband online using cryptocurrency. Jabreel employed peddlers to get the stuff down to Kochi from Chennai while Shiraz assisted him in selling the contraband in the district’s rural areas.According to the City police, 2,391 NDPS cases had been registered so far this year. Last year, there were 9,242 NDPS cases compared to the 5.924 in 2016.