In a major breakthrough in its investigations into a multi-crore international synthetic drug case, Punjab Police today claimed to have arrested two alleged key operatives from New Delhi and Mumbai.
Sanjay Goel and Basant Srivastav, both residents of Mumbai, were arrested yesterday after raids were carried out at several places following the interrogation of the Rs 6000 crore drug racket's mastermind Devinder Singh Dev, a Canadian national of Rajasthan origin, who was apprehended recently.
While Goel was arrested from a hotel in Delhi, Srivastav was taken into custody from his Mumbai residence, Dinkar Gupta, Additional DGP (Law and Order) said.
Gupta described the arrests as breakthrough in its drive against drug trafficking and said the Punjab Police had so far interrogated over 100 smugglers in connection with the case.
He said the investigations in the drug racket had showed that precursor chemicals such as Ketamine, Ephedrine and Pseudoephedrine were procured by the drug racketeers from Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi after diverting from medicinal sectors and smuggled into Canada.
The processing of the precursor chemicals to manufacture synthetic drugs was done mainly in Canada by Chinese and Vietnamese nationals, he said.
The Punjab Police established liaison with Mumbai Commissionerate for providing assistance before arresting the accused, Gupta said.
He said the investigations have revealed that the Mumbai module had provided 4,500 kgs of Ketamine to Dev.
Further investigations are going on, he said.
