HYDERABAD: The city and its outskirts, which were the transit points for gangs into ganja smuggling for supplies to Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and other states, have now become transit points for international smuggling gangs.
Though there are direct routes from Andhra Pradesh and Odisha agency areas connecting sea ports, the smuggling gangs could have chosen Hyderabad to dodge surveillance by law enforcement agencies. Investigators suspect that these gangs first transport ganja to Hyderabad and then route them to Chennai for onward shipment to Sri Lanka.
Rachakonda police recently busted a ganja supplying racket originating from agency areas located on the Andhra-Odisha Border (AOB).
Those arrested were working at the behest of their handler Rajesh, who is based in Tamil Nadu. In the present instance, Rajesh instructed them to deliver the banned substance in the city but those arrested said that Rajesh had similar gangs working for him in other states and now he was also transporting ganja to Sri Lanka.
Investigators suspect that Rajesh could also be using the Hyderabad route to transport the stuff to port cities in order to dodge agencies.
“Though no such evidence in the present case leads to such a conclusion, there is a high probability that he could have used or might use this route to hoodwink security agencies,” they observed.
Since Rajesh continues to be at large, they have intensified search to trace and nab him.
“Once we get him, we can break the entire network on his interstate and international smuggling rackets,” they said, adding that they have already apprised the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) of the case.
