VIJAYAWADA: Vijayawada police on Sunday formed three teams to find the source of a couriered consignment of Ephedrine powder worth Rs 90 lakh that was confiscated at Bengaluru’s Kempegowda International Airport. The investigation teams were formed after the preliminary probe found the drug trail extending to Vijayawada and Palnadu district.
Central zone assistant commissioner of police (ACP) S Khadar Basha said the consignment was addressed to a person in Australia but ended up in Canada due to a wrong address slip pasted on it.“After the returned parcel reached the Bengaluru airport on April 27, the Customs Intelligence Unit, Special Intelligence and Investigation Branch at the airport and the Air Cargo Commissionerate officials inspected the consignment the next day and found Ephedrine powder hidden among readymade garments,” he said.
Ephedrine, used overseas to treat asthma and bronchitis, when misused, causes euphoria, hallucinations, delusions, hypertension and nausea. Its sale and export is banned in India under the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985.
The agencies collected the details of the parcel and courier agency which led to Guttula Teja, who runs DST Couriers at Bharathi Nagar in Vijayawada. He was questioned and arrested on Friday and produced before an NDPS court on Saturday.
Basha said one Kondaveeti Gopi Sai of Sattenapalli town in Palnadu approached DST in Vijayawada on January 31, and asked courier agent Teja to send the parcel to his relatives in Australia. “Teja had objected to the ‘inappropriate’ Aadhaar card produced for booking the consignment. However, the agent booked the parcel using his Aadhaar card after being requested, and sent the shipment to the courier agency’s head office in Hyderabad,’’ the ACP said.
The DST courier in Vijayawada acts as a local agent to Hyderabad-based World First International Couriers and all parcels booked here are shipped to respective addresses via Hyderabad. The ACP added that police teams have been dispatched to Sattenapalli to find Gopi Sai, head office in Hyderabad and Bengaluru to collect details from the Customs.
“We are verifying the details of Sai and Teja to ascertain the source of Ephedrine, and how the former had sourced it. Another team will collect details of the parcel from the World First Couriers’ office in Hyderabad,” Basha added.