Kochi : City police investigating the seizure of over Rs 1 crore worth MDMA in Mattancherry said the case stemmed from vital information passed on by the public.
One among the accused, T A Shafeer, 33, was detained by the district anti-narcotic special action force (Dansaf) in Palarivattom around 9pm on Thursday with a small quantity of MDMA. As much as 13.9g of MDMA that was concealed on his person, was seized from Naufal. The contraband sourced for up to Rs 900 per gram was sold in smaller quantities at several times the rate.
Because of Operation Toofan, Noufal had stashed the contraband far from his house to avoid detection, the commissioner said.
The main source, Noufal in Mattancherry, was identified after investigation including mobile phone data,” city police commissioner Kaliraj Mahesh Kumar said. The commissioner said synthetic drugs are mostly arriving from Delhi and Nepal presently. Police said the accused were part of a racket which smuggles MDMA from Delhi to Kochi.
“We received the information through the Yodhav app (police app for reporting drug abuse anonymously). We were able to recover a small quantity in Palarivattom. He added that since both the public and the police are on high alert, the smugglers are constantly changing their modus operandi. When police tighten surveillance to prevent smuggling from Bengaluru, they switch to other places. When airports are kept under surveillance, they land in other states and arrive by road. Police received information about Naufal, an online taxi driver, from Shafeer. Subsequently, Naufal’s house was searched. Based on information obtained from him, police checked his car which was parked in Karuvelipady. The rest of the contraband was found in the car stashed inside appliances. The accused used to dismantle new electrical appliances, pack the drugs in empty cavities before refitting them and send them as private courier consignments through trains. Police recovered three air coolers and a cooling cabinet-cum-water filter from the accused, which were allegedly used to conceal the drugs.