KOCHI: In December 2021, excise officials arrested two men with about 2kg of ganja in Neyyattinkara. During questioning, the men revealed info on another 23kg of stash hidden elsewhere. The officers were pleased to recover a total of 25 kg ganja in such a short span.
However, their excitement grew manifold when they discovered that the two men in custody had evidence against a narco kingpin, Shanthibhooshan, who had managed to evade the law for long.
“He was into the drug business for about a decade. But we never managed to find any evidence against him in the drug cases,” recalls Excise Assistant Commissioner Vinod Kumar S, who investigated the case.
“He indirectly took part in the operations and smuggled in quintals of ganja into the district. Being a smart operator, he always played from behind the curtains.”
Shanthibhooshan’s modus operandi involved not handling drugs directly and instead relying on other people to smuggle contraband from Andhra Pradesh or Theni in Tamil Nadu. “He used to field a lot of boys in the business and concealed drugs brought from other states in their land. But he did not directly communicate with them, thus denying us any evidence regarding his involvement,” says Vinod.
After seizing the ganja from Neyyattinkara, officers checked the call details of the arrested men. They discovered that the duo had telephonic conversations with Shanthibhooshan, who had used a SIM card in his wife’s name to contact them.
The incriminating digital evidence was also recovered by the excise officials during the subsequent probe. Shanthibhooshan went into hiding, but was caught earlier this month by the Aryancode police during a vehicle check.
Officers found that he had earned big moolah from drug trafficking, and had acquired assets such as land and a multi-storey building. The departments concerned have initiated a process to freeze his assets.
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