THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: After being three years on the run, a Thiruvananthapuram native, against whom the Interpol had issued a red corner notice in connection with a massive drug haul case registered in Thiruvananthapuram, was detained at Abu Dhabi airport this week.
Sources in the state police’s crime branch confirmed that they had received official intimation about the detention of Shaun Sunil Bert, who had fled the state before being booked by the excise in July 2023 in the seizure of 155 kg of ganja and 60g of MDMA from a rented house in Thumba.
A resident of Valiya Veli, Shaun fled the country after the excise arrested four of his accomplices. Crime branch sources said they have informed the police headquarters and the excise department of the detention.
“The government will now form a team of police and excise officials to bring the detainee back,” said a source. The excise, through the police’s crime branch wing, had moved the documents required to issue the red corner notice to the CBI, the nodal agency for the Interpol.
As per sources, Shaun could have been detained much earlier had the department concerned government not been lethargic in releasing the `28,000 required to translate the case’s documents, spanning around 250 pages, to Arabic. Translating the documents is the established procedure with the UAE courts, and only after a local court orders arrest can an accused be brought to India.
Though the excise department had requested sanctioning the amount to get Shaun, a key member of a drug cartel, extradited from the UAE, it was kept in cold storage for two years by taxes department.
TNIE had earlier reported about the bureaucratic procrastination following which the government directed the department to release the fund.