• Source:JND
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Noida Drug Bust: In yet another massive drug haul, sleuths of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) and the Special Cell of the Delhi Police on Tuesday busted a major drug racket, which is suspected to have links with a major Mexican drug cartel, identified as CJNG -- Cartel De Jalisco Nueva Generacion. Five persons including a Delhi businessman and a Tihar jail warden have been arrested in connection with the case.

Around 95 kilograms of methamphetamine in both solid and liquid forms was seized during the raids at a clandestine methamphetamine lab in the Kasana Industrial Area of Gautam Budh Nagar in Uttar Pradesh. Chemicals like acetone, sodium hydroxide, methylene chloride, premium-grade ethanol, toluene, red phosphorus, ethyl acetate and imported machinery for manufacturing synthetic drugs were also seized from the clandestine lab.

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During the preliminary investigation, authorities found that a Delhi-based businessman and a Tihar Jail warden, present at the site during the raid, were instrumental in establishing the factory. The duo is suspected of organising the procurement of essential chemicals and importing advanced machinery required for meth production.

NCB’s Deputy Director General of Operations, Gyaneshwar Singh, who led the raid on October 25, said that a Mumbai-based chemist was roped in by these people to manufacture the drug. The quality of the drug was tested by a Mexican drug cartel member residing in Delhi.

Singh further said these four people were arrested and produced before a special Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act court on October 27 which sent them to three-day NCB custody. An "important member" of the syndicate and "close associate" of the Delhi-based businessman was apprehended in follow-up action from Delhi's Rajouri Garden area, he said.

According to the NCB, the Delhi businessman was earlier arrested by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) in a separate NDPS case and had been lodged in Tihar Jail, where he came in contact with the warden who later became his "accomplice".

This came days after seven students were arrested in Tamil Nadu's Chennai on October 24 for manufacturing methamphetamine. However, they were arrested before they could sell the drug in the market. While they tried to make the drug in a makeshift 'lab,' set up in the residence of one of the seven students, they made their parents believe that they were involved in academic research as part of their studies.

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The drug bust in Kasana is the sixth meth lab busted Narcotics Control Bureau this year alone. Earlier, the NCB busted drug rackets in Gujarat's Gandhinagar and Amreli, Jodhpur and Sirohi in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh's Bhopal. The NCB recovered around 900 kg of mephedrone in solid and liquid forms in the Bhopal raid and 7,000 kg of various chemicals and drug-making machinery.

The NCB believes that considering the low cost of production of synthetic drugs like methamphetamine and mephedrone, the drug mafia is "increasingly shifting" to setting up such clandestine labs in industrial areas so that local law enforcement agencies are not alerted by the routine transportation of material and machinery, waste generated from the laboratories and toxic fumes coming out of chimneys during chemical processing.


(With PTI Inputs)


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