HYDERABAD: Two Goan peddlers and six local peddlers operating and selling drugs through the Dark Web were arrested by Hyderabad police on Thursday. Additionally, the cops also identified 20 consumers and took them into custody under Section 27 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985.
A peddler from Goa, Priteesh Narayan Borkar, was recently arrested by Osmania police. Borkar revealed the name of the kingpin, Edwin Nunis, who was arrested by Goa police for supplying drugs to Sonali Phogat, a politician, who died recently.
CV Anand, Hyderabad Commissioner of Police, said, “Two interstate peddlers — Narendra Arya and Farhan Mohammad Ansari — have been taken into custody. They operate under the IDs Holy Shop and Terminator. While Narendra is from Haryana and Ansari is from Madhya Pradesh, they have settled in Goa.”
Six other local peddlers — Utkarsh Umang, Sahil Sharma, Abdullah Ansar Ahmed Khan, Indra Kumar, Aviti Charan Kumar and P Bushan Raj — have also been arrested. “Edwin named another offender, who goes by the name of ‘Zambada Cartel’, is absconding,” he added.
Drugs, such as LSD blots, MDMA and charas, worth Rs 9 lakh were also seized from the accused, Anand added. Explaining the modus operandi, he said the consumers would use the ‘WickrMe’ application to access Dark Web platforms and order drugs. However, the payments would be through cryptocurrency platforms such as Binance and WazirX and the drugs would arrive in a gift box through courier, the CP added.
Osmania police, with the help of H-NEW DCP Gummi Chakravarthy, arrested Borkar on August 17. He revealed the entire process and added that he was procuring it from Edwin and four others based out of Goa.
Peddlers earned lakhs from cryptocurrency
Two peddlers created Holy Shop and Treeminator as their identification on the Dark Web and supplied drugs across the country from their base in Goa. While Holy Shop which was run by Narendra Arya is from Haryana, Treeminator’s operator Farhan Mohammad Ansari, a final-year BTech student, is from MP. Arya had 450 consumers and earned Rs 30 lakh last year. Ansari used India Post to deliver his goods across the country.
He had made Rs 15 lakh last year. Both of them used to accept payments through cryptocurrency. A third offender Zambada Cartel, whose base was in New Delhi, is absconding. All of them reportedly used accept orders from LSD, MDMA, charas and ganja. H-NEW and Hyderabad City Police, who camped in Goa, tracked the peddlers and sustained injuries during the chase to nab them. Apparently, the Goa police were of no help to cops from the city