The NCB on Wednesday claimed to have unearthed an international money laundering syndicate, with the arrest of three Nigerians, that was trying to use dormant bank accounts in the country to route crores of rupees for illegal drug trade.
They said an American and an Indian nationals are also under the scanner of the federal anti-drugs agency even as 255 grams of cocaine, 350 grams of heroin and 100 grams of Methamphetamine were seized from the accused over the weekend.
The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) got into this investigation after NCB Director General Rakesh Asthana directed the sleuths to check drug money laundering instances and take help of suspicious transaction reports (STRs), generated by the Financial Intelligence Unit, to track offenders.
Acting on these inputs, Nigerian nationals Butter Nnamani (35), Eze N Bonaventure (36) and Kelvin Mansary alias Ben were arrested under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, Delhi zonal director K P S Malhotra said.
The agency claimed that Ben was a "major point of sale of drugs" and he was fraudulently using the passport of a Belgian national to stay in the country.
An unidentified Indian national was later zeroed in by the NCB who allegedly used to take regular drug supplies from Ben and he told the NCB that the gang was "planning to get huge amounts of money transferred through money laundering channel", NCB deputy director general Rajesh Nandan Srivastava said.
"These people had access to some dormant bank accounts in which huge amounts were parked. As per their plan, they wanted to transfer money from the dormant account to various new accounts," he said.
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A US national, Robert Polanco, and the Indian man later contacted an official of a prominent bank who promised to arrange "necessary clearance" for this funds transfer, the DDG said.
NCB officials claim that Rs 10 lakh was paid as advance amount to the bank official who has not been identified by the agency and the total amount to be laundered was Rs 16 crore.
A man who is lodged in the Tihar jail, identified as Vishal, was also "actively connecting" with all these accused.
The agency said they have informed the family of the Indian about his drug addiction and have also requested the AIIMS to help him in getting medical intervention.
While the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) probe is ongoing to unravel the entire money laundering ring, information of the case is being shared with the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for probe at its end also, Srivastava said.