KOCHI: Following the seizure of 62 kg of ganja in Angamali, the Ernakulam rural police busted a drug trafficking network by arresting its kingpin on Wednesday.
The accused, Abdul Jabbar aka Ronaldo Jabbar, 46, a resident of Manjaly in North Paravur, was apprehended by a special squad of the Ernakulam rural DANSAF team.
Acting on intelligence inputs, district police chief K S Sudarsan had identified Jabbar as the kingpin behind a network that trafficked ganja from states including Odisha, West Bengal, Assam and Andhra Pradesh, and distributed it in the state on a large scale. Following his directive, the special squad had been monitoring the accused for the past three months before finally arresting Jabbar from a rented house in Erattupetta, where he had been hiding, said a source with the rural police.
Haneefa, a native of Kasaragod who was arrested earlier in Angamali, had transported the contraband from Odisha on Jabbar’s instructions. The drugs were concealed in 31 packets inside a specially designed compartment beneath the rear seat of a car, with Erattupetta as the intended destination.
He was intercepted by the DANSAF team during transit. The accused is involved in around 20 cases, most of them related to narcotics. Two vehicles used for the smuggling have also been taken into custody, the officer added.