'Foreign buyers duped banned drug sellers'

A probe into the racket busted by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), wherein orders for banned drugs were allegedly taken by Thane and Punjab-based call centres from customers living in the United States and the United Kingdom, has revealed that the racketeers were duped by their own customers on numerous occasions. The drugs were usually sent through a foreign post office.

On November 21, DRI officials raided the Mira Road branch of a courier firm and seized 16 lakh tablets worth Rs 57 lakh.

Officials arrested the mastermind of the racket Manjit Singh, his brother Amrik Singh, Deepali Narvekar, Chandigarh-based call centre owner Samrat Bharadwaj, Ambernath call centre owner Nitin Pawar, Vashi call centre owner Karan Khanna and Sangli-based banned drugs supplier Rajaram Mane. Samrat's partner, who is currently in New Zealand, is also under the DRI's scanner.

An official said Manjit earlier worked in a medical supply call centre, where he learned the tricks of trade, and later set up his own business.

"Manjit procured the list of customers who would place orders with the call centre he worked with and then started contacting them for orders," said a DRI official on condition of anonymity.

The official said the UK and US-based customers would contact the call centres at Ambernath, Vashi and Chandigarh and place orders for drugs like Alprazolam, Zolpidem and Diazepam.

"The call centre team would make a list of customers and their requirements and hand them over to Manjit. He would get goods from suppliers in Agra, Ludhiana and Sangli and send it to a team in Delhi. The consignment would be sent through foreign post office. Once dispatched, they would provide a list of tracking IDs to Manjit, who would then hand over the list to the call centre teams. These teams have associates in the US and UK who opened bank accounts there. The money would be credited into these accounts by customers, and would later be sent to their Indian counterparts," the official said.

"The arrested accused said the customers, on a number of occasions, would call up the concerned bank after receiving the consignment to say they had credited the money and had told the bank that they had transferred money into the account by mistake. They would ask the bank to transfer the money back into their accounts. After a number of cases came to light, the gang prepared a list of customers who duped and blacklisted them. Their calls were not entertained by the gang later," said the official.

Every time a consignment was delivered successfully, the call centre team would take a 10-15 per cent commission. Manjit would get around 20-25 per cent as commission.

"The call centre team would provide US and UK-based numbers to customers for placing orders, which were actually diverted to the Indian call centre teams by the US and UK counterparts. Customers would assume that the receiver is in the US or the UK," the official said.