Online marijuana smuggling probe in Madhya Pradesh finds similar syndicates

BHOPAL: The online marijuana smuggling racket busted by the district police of Bhind in Madhya Pradesh is getting bigger. The ongoing probe into the racket allegedly operating on the platform of shopping major Amazon has revealed that possibly 10 more similar rackets are operational on the same platform for a year now.

The same players (sellers and buyers) who were part of the first racket could also be the key players in the other 10. All these are fictitious entities selling Stevia Dry Leaves.  Bhind SP Manoj Kumar Singh told The New Indian Express that Babu Tex was the name of fictitious company whose key players were arrested first.

Nine persons including five from Madhya Pradesh's Gwalior-Chambal region and four from Visakhapatnam have been arrested so far. Executive directors of the online shopping major have also been booked.

According to police, information shared by Amazon reveals Babu Tex with an address in Visakhapatnam was registered with the online major as a seller of Stevia Dry Leaves (natural sweetener and health product). Buyers in at least 12 cities of Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and MP were buying Stevia Dry Leaves, but actually indulging in online smuggling of marijuana.

"Investigations suggest that the annual volume of this nefarious trade could well have crossed Rs 2 crore. Babu Tex was operating for around five months. Other fictitious companies using the Amazon platform were trading for around a year. Probe reveals that these new fictitious companies registered with Amazon had delivered 360 consignments of ganja in a year to the same set of buyers trading with Babu Tex," Singh said.