HYDERABAD: A 35-year-old widow, hailing from Vijayawada and prime accused in drug trafficking and flesh trade cases busted by the Rachakonda police recently, Palaparthi Sangeetha was allegedly the unassuming face of operations for the Nigerian gang.The woman has acted as a bridge between the local customers and Nigerians. She even gained confidence of customers and they were also interested only in sending money to the peddlers through Sangeetha’s bank account, a senior police officer said.Sangeetha lost her husband six months after marriage around 10 years ago. Later, she worked as an executive at a call centre in Vijayawada. Then she came in contact with a woman Nigerian national living in Hyderabad through Facebook. Friendship with the Nigerian changed Sangeetha’s life forever, said police.
According to the police, the Nigerian woman, who anticipated that Sangeetha would be of great help to her friends who were allegedly into drug trafficking and flesh trade, invited her to Hyderabad and live with her. Soon, Sangeetha’s friendship with Nigerian man Ojuka Cosmos developed into love and the duo started living together at Sun City in Attapur, the area where hundreds of Africans live.
It did not take much time for Sangeetha to be an active partner of the gang and the Nigerians trusted her. They made her in-charge of the financial dealings of their illegal businesses. Sangeetha opened two accounts with SBI here.
Gradually, the gang started organising parties on the outskirts of Hyderabad and in pubs. Their prime target was to lure the elite, said an officer probing the case.“During investigation, over 1,000 mobile contacts have been identified, mostly people located in Hyderabad and belonging to rich families,” said a police officer of Rachakonda commissionerate. Based on the confession of the gang members, six city residents were questioned after identifying them as drug addicts.
In the past one week, police questioned K Annarapu Pavan Kumar Reddy (34) of Kothaguda, K Sandeep Reddy (26) of Jubilee Hills, Samuel John (30) of SR Nagar, A Akash (29) of Banjara Hills, S Arjun Reddy (26) of Madhapur and S Amarasimha Reddy (26) of Jubilee Hills. When these six youngsters were interrogated, they divulged more details about Sangeetha’s role in drug trafficking. As per police investigation, Sangeetha, with the help of her Nigerian boyfriend, had been supplying drugs to children of several prominent personalities in Hyderabad.
“The city residents questioned in connection with the drug racket include children of very rich businessmen and IT employees. There are several others who are into drug abuse. We are verifying the details of others also. Goa is the source of drugs for the gang and a team is visiting that place to nab peddlers,” the officer said. The gang also wanted to make a fast buck by luring people into flesh trade. Sangeetha confessed to her crime during her three-day interrogation. She was produced in court on Friday.