Punjab police on claimed to have busted an international drug cartel with the arrest of eight persons, including a Burmese woman, from different parts of the country.
The arrested persons were identified as R Shiva Kumar, V Venkatesh, M Prabhu, RV Sanmugam and S Mani, all from Chennai, Sachin Sardana from Delhi, and Cerboih alias Cherry, a Burmese national, from Delhi (also carrying Indian passport with name Zam Zan Iang of Manipur), and Devinder Kant Sharma of Haryana, IGP Patiala zone Paramjit Singh Gill said on Tuesday.
Police seized Rs1.6 crore, two packing and computerised weighing machines and two cars from their possession, he said.
Also, 8.19 lakh Pseudoephedrine tablets, 6.5 kg narcotic powder, fake bills drawn on fictitious firms showing delivery of pharmaceutical medicines prepared from pseudoephedrine, one .32 bore pistol with 8 cartridges were recovered from them.
The eight were arrested from different locations in Delhi, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, he said.
"With the busting of an international synthetic drug trafficking cartel, police has succeeded in unveiling supply chains emanating from Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi through Chennai and Mizoram up to Malaysia and European countries," he said.
Gill said that preliminary investigations disclosed that this group used to procure pseudoephedrine, 'ICE' and other narcotic substances from Himachal Pradesh and transport it by rail to Chennai, whereafter it was shipped to Burma and Malaysia, and from there to European countries.
Three Malaysians - Ibrahim, Rehman and Akbar - have been identified as the "end recipients" of these narcotics, he said, adding that S Mani was the contact person for the Malaysians to procure and ship these narcotics to Malaysia.
Walte, a Burmese, has also been identified as the "end recipient" of the drug consignments and his contact person in India was Cerboih alias Cherry, he said.
This drug network was functional for the last 6-7 years, Gill said, adding that the operational control of this group was in Chennai from where the computerised weighing machines and packing material have been seized.
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