Mumbai police have cracked down on narcotic trafficking in the city in the last two months and not the Anti-Narcotic Cell of the city police but also local police stations have been engaged in the drive.

 

There is a watch maintained on the streets and local police unlike in the past when ANC would be the solely police agency to crackdown on drug trafficking in Mumbai, are also targeting narcotic smuggling and trafficking in the streets

 

In the last two months, Mumbai in a city-wide crackdown on drug trafficking arrested 4726 persons in 3200 cases registered under the NDPS Act. The police deported 6 Nigerians and a Tanzanian arrested for drug trafficking and will be deporting two more Nigerians in the next few days.

 

Currently, police are patrolling the streets of Mumbai in their jurisdiction as street cocaine is covertly peddled as crack in selected public spots and high-grade cocaine is peddled at private parties among showbizz celebrities and their page three party animal friends.

 

Nigerians who control nearly 60 per cent of the narcotics business in Mumbai operate out of Mira Road and Naigaon in Thane district. These Nigerian peddlers deal in methamphetamine, cocaine and lSD and are one of the main suppliers in the celebrity party circuit.

 

The last major drug haul by an anti-narcotic agency was in December last year when Directorate of Revenue Intelligence’s Mumbai unit raided a ketaamine illegal manufacturing unit in Jalgaon, in Maharashtra.

 

About 1.2 tonnes of banned ketamine drug, worth over Rs.118 crore in the international market, was seized from an illegal drug manufacturing unit in Jalgaon district in north Maharashtra and six persons were arrested,

 

"During the raid, 1,175 kilograms of ketamine, with a market value of Rs.118 crore was seized. Rukhma Industries does not have licence to manufacture Ketamine. The drug was kept concealed in a sister unit called Biosynthetics, located close to Rukhma Industries," claimed a DRI official.

 

DRI officials said that the brain behind the racket Vikas Puri a post-graduate in Pharmaceuticals and Fine Chemicals from one of the reputed national educational institution, University Department of Chemical Technology (UDCT), owned V C Pharma and Specialty Chemicals in Vikhroli and factories in Ratnagiri district. Puri is alleged to have placed an order with pharmaceutical units for manufacturing ketamine like Rukhma Industries among others to manufacture it.