KOCHI: After investigation confirmed the role of Pakistani operator Haji Salim in smuggling drugs to India, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) and Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) are looking into the Pak drug baron’s involvement in the seizure of two drug consignments meant for a Mumbai-based fruit import company belonging to Keralite Virgin Varghese.
Senior DRI officials said that Haji Salim controlled the Asian market for drugs manufactured in Afghanistan and he was using different channels to smuggle narcotics to India. “Apart from the sea route, Haji Salim has conduits to push the drugs through alternative means. We are verifying whether Mansoor Thachaparamban, who had send the fruits consignment with drugs to Vijin, had links to the Haji Salim cartel ,” said a DRI officer.
It was More Fresh Exports SA Pvt Ltd owned by Kerala-based businessman Mansoor Thachaparamban that shipped the fruit consignments with drugs to the company owned by Vigin Varghese, which is engaged in fruit import.
“Haji lords over the heroin and cocaine trade generated from Afghanistan. India is one of the main hubs for his racket and he has a key role in regulating drug smuggling through the southern route comprising South Africa, Pakistan and India,” said an NCB official.
A United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report had already analysed the rising drug smuggling through the southern route and how India was being used by international drug cartels to send drug consignments to other South East Asian countries. The agencies are probing the exponential growth of Vijin in the last six years after he set up a small firm for fruits import.
The DRI had effected back-to-back seizures of drugs from containers that arrived in the name of Vijin’s company in the last few days from South Africa. While the first consignment of methamphetamine and cocaine worth Rs 1,476 crore was seized on October 2 in cartons of Valencia oranges imported from South Africa by the company, the second seizure of 50 kg of cocaine worth Rs 502 crore was made from a container carrying over 1,000 cartons of green apples, which was also imported from South Africa.