Hyderabad: On Thursday, after a drug bust at a hotel near LB Nagar, directorate of revenue intelligence officials grilled two men who carried with them 50 kg of banned drug, ephed-rine. The duo confessed they were carriers and heading for Chennai to hand over the drug to another gang. The drug, produced at a covert manufacturing unit here, was to ultimately reach Southeast Asian destinations like Hong Kong and Singapore. It could fetch as high as Rs 5 crore in international market. The DRI raid however came in the way and aborted their plans.
Hyderabad has become the hub of covert illegal manufacturing units of banned drugs like ephedrine. Six months ago, the Cyberabad Special Operation Team (SOT) busted another gang near LB Nagar, from whom sleuths seized more than 50 kg of ephedrine. There were many busts by SOT in which ephedrine worth crores were seized in the last two years.
Production
The growing numbers of small-scale pharmaceutical units in the city outskirts are used by gangs to promote the racket. They use the facilities of these labs to produce the drugs and pay the owners a handsome amount. The modus operandi is such that the gangs take the manufacturing units for rent for a few days and produce the material. For an experienced pharmacist, it does not take much time to manufacture huge quantities of ephedrine, noted Cyberabad SOT chief, E. Ramchandra Reddy.
Earlier such rackets operated from Chennai and Maharashtra, but they shifted base after enforcement agencies like the narcotics control bureau (NCB), the DRI and the police cracked down on them. Many of them then moved into Hyderabad, another base for the pharmaceutical industry, to carry on with their illegal operations.
When enforcement agencies bust the rackets, the kingpins who operate the international drug smuggling racket normally escape arrest. Only the workers, pharmacists and carriers are arrested. The gang leaders are safely based in places like Chennai, from where the drug is shipped to South East Asia. “We could catch the pharmacists and carriers, but not the kingpins,” said the SOT chief.
The pharmacists and other workers are usually hired on temporary basis. Their trail will not lead up to the racket leaders. This makes it difficult for the enforcement agencies to track down the main culprits, say enforcement officials.
Public transportation is used by the racketeers to smuggle the huge quantities of manufactured drugs to Chennai and Mumbai. Most smugglers use interstate buses. In the present case, the carriers were using AC buses from Hyderabad to Chennai to smuggle the drugs, said an SOT official.
