BENGALURU : In the first of its kind in the country, a case under the Smugglers and Foreign Exchange Manipulators (SAFEMA) Act has been registered against a 38-year-old international drug peddler by the city police. The peddler, Peter Ikedi Belonwu, a Nigerian national, was arrested the Vidyaranyapura police in November 2023.
Further, Rs 12 lakh in cash was recovered from seven different bank accounts to which he was accepting payments from his clients. Central Crime Branch (CCB) sleuths started gathering more information about Peter. The sleuths found out that he was having seven bank accounts of which two were in the name of his wife and the other five were mule accounts.
These accounts were linked to Unified Payments Interface (UPI). He was receiving the cash from his clients to these seven bank accounts. Peter came to the country in 2018 on a medical visa and continued staying in the country. In 2022, he married a woman from Manipur.
“It was the first time in the country that the police used different sections of NDPS and SAFEMA Act to recover money from a foreign drug peddler. Drugs, passport and Rs 12 lakh has been recovered from him,” B Dayananda, Bengaluru Police Commissioner ,said.
Along with SAFEMA Act, the peddler has also been booked under the various sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.
