SER 07 OF X SERIALS:- Afghan Heroin via Pak to GujaraT to Punjab

SOURCE:
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/afghan-heroin-via-pak-to-gujarat-then-punjab-hidden-in-spices-38028

SER 07 OF X SERIALS

https://bcvasundhra.blogspot.com/2020/02/source-httpswww_9.html

SER 06 OF  X  SERIALS:
https://bcvasundhra.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-afghanistan-india-drug-trail.html

SER 05 OF X SERIALS:

https://bcvasundhra.blogspot.com/2016/07/drugs-punjab-drug-epidemic-dark-days.html

SER 04 OF  X  SERIALS:
https://bcvasundhra.blogspot.com/2016/07/drugs-drug-trafficking-in-india-case.html

SER 03 OF  X  SERIALS:
https://bcvasundhra.blogspot.com/2016/06/punjabs-drug-crisis-afghan-heroin.html

SER 02 OF  X  SERIALS:
https://bcvasundhra.blogspot.com/2016/06/drug-abuse-in-punjab-jahaj-aa-gaya-hai.html

SER 01 OF  X  SERIALS
https://bcvasundhra.blogspot.com/2016/04/opium-menace-in-punjab-torch-bearer-of.html

FEATURES

ITEM-01
Jupinderjit Singh in Chandigarh

         Afghan Heroin via Pak to Gujarat, 

                               then

              Punjab, hidden in Spices

Another major drug haul in Amritsar and unearthing of a drug factory for the first time — months after the massive seizure by the Customs at Wagah — blow the lid off a new trafficking route and point to the enormity of the challenge

It was in 2017 that Arshad Sota, an exporter from Mandvi in Gujarat who was reeling under debt, came into contact near Chabahar port in Iran with point-persons of one of the most wanted drug smugglers of the subcontinent, Hazi Jaan Mohammad of Pakistan.

Arshad, who had to leave his village owing to a love affair gone awry, had faced losses when some traders tricked him into buying a boat that was not seaworthy.

In desperate need of money, he agreed to undertake what was described as a simple task — transport material supplied by Hazi Jaan on a boat to Gujarat and then to Unjha (spice market hub), where one Simranjit Singh Sandhu from Punjab would give him instructions.

Sandhu is no ordinary smuggler. In Punjab Police records, he is listed as one of the big fish in the drug trade. Hailing from Ranjit Avenue in Amritsar, he had to flee Australia in 2015 over illegal activities. Sandhu, investigating agencies claim, later set up a gang of Punjabi and Kashmiri peddlers with whom he ran a cover-up trade of transporting cumin seeds from Gujarat to North India, and apples, tomato and onions from Kashmir and Wagah international trade centre to Gujarat and Delhi. Hidden in the bags would be small bags of heroin.

The Hazi-Sandhu-Arshad network — with footprints in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan to Gujarat, Punjab and Kashmir — within no time converted their partnership into a mind-boggling trade of smuggling narcotics, mainly heroin, from India to Europe and even Australia.

After many suspected successful runs, which the investigators are yet to unearth, they became so bold that they set up an illicit drug manufacturing factory on the outskirts of Amritsar where crude heroin (bought at low rates) was processed into a high-cut value for European and high-profile Indian markets.

The group even hired experts from Afghanistan to work on a contract of US $50,000 for refining about 200 kg of heroin in the illicit unit within a month. They managed to do this even as Arshad Sota had landed in jail in Gujarat.

 Special Task Force (STF) uncovers nexus

But for the alertness shown by the anti-drug Special Task Force (STF) of Punjab Police, headed by ADGP Harpreet Singh Sidhu, the nefarious activities would have continued. After tracking the suspects, the STF raided the unit and nabbed six persons, including Afghan national Arman Basharmal. A father of 14,  Arman revealed during his interrogation that two other heroin experts from his country earlier ran the illicit unit in Sultanwind.

Among others arrested were Ankush Kapoor, a cloth merchant-turned drug smuggler from Amritsar, and a gym-trainer couple, who told the police they were hired to arrange food and security. They wanted to immigrate to Australia and wanted money for the purpose.

Simranjit Sandhu, the alleged kingpin, is currently detained in Italy. Besides facing arrest in Punjab, he was booked by Gujarat Police in the same FIR involving Arshad Sota. The fact that they were involved in running the illicit unit and bringing an Afghan expert for refining crude heroin shows how widespread their network was.

Punjab seems to have provided them willing peddlers, facilitators and market for their produce, besides a network to export it to European or other countries.

In his study titled “Political Economy of Drugs and Insurgency in Punjab in 2017”, Rajan Pal of Naval Post Graduate School, California, writes that a drug addict’s average daily expenditure is Rs1,400 on heroin, an opium addict spends Rs350, while the expenditure for capsules/tablets comes to Rs265.

IG Kaustubh Sharma of the Punjab STF said they had got information that drug smugglers were trying to flood the region with drugs. “There are reports that nearly 3 lakh tonne of heroin, accumulated over the last few years in Afghanistan due to heightened security on the Indian border, was waiting to be smuggled into India and abroad. It is here that gangs like those of Sandhu become more dangerous and active. Coupled with these is the use of drones to drop heroin packets inside Punjab. Every day and every smuggler poses a new challenge for us.”

The STF was yet to find out the exact routes and storage and supply chain of the Sandhu gang, admitted IG Sharma. The network may have continued its run but for alleged siphoning off of 5-kg heroin by two of its members — Abdul Aziz Bhagad and Rafiq. Once the gang members learnt about the cheating, the backlash facilitated the trail that helped unearth the drug factory.

The Gujarat ATS blew the lid off this network when they arrested two members and declared Simranjit Sandhu as the kingpin.

Global Trail

Hazi Jaan operates from Gwadar port in Pakistan, which is developed by China. It stares at Chabahar seaport in Iran which India has helped build. Arshad Sota had been operating from Chabahar and it is not unusual to meet traders from Pakistan. The Pakistani port is next to an abandoned desert-like area called Pashni in Balochistan from where drugs from Afghanistan are routed to the seaport. The Sandhu gang, say officials, had eclipsed all the gangs busted by the security agencies earlier. And those gangs were not small in any way.

While Sandhu and his gang was ruling the roost in Golden Crescent, one Amarinder Singh Chhina of Ajnala in Amritsar, now hiding in Canada, was busy oiling his network of smugglers spreading from Mexico to USA, Canada, Australia and eventually to Delhi, Baddi in Himachal Pradesh and finally Punjab.

He smuggled high-quality cocaine for rich clients in Delhi and Goa as well as Punjab. The Narcotics Control Board had busted the gang. Sub-inspector Rajneesh Kumar, who is investigating the matter, said Punjab Police were on the job to initiate the extradition proceedings of Chhina, who, he added, has never been arrested.

The closest the police came was when they nabbed his key associate Akshinder Singh Sodhi in September last year from Patti in Punjab. He had received a consignment of American cocaine hidden in a printer imported from Canada, SI Rajneesh said.

The recovery of American cocaine added a new chapter to the drug trade in Punjab. The drugs were meant for moneyed clients and was smuggled in printer machines and delivered in Jalandhar. “It was an international network of drug trafficking which was operating in Delhi, Punjab and Mumbai with linkages in Australia and Canada,” NCB Deputy Director SK Jha said.

Notorious Havellian brothers

If an illicit drugs manufacturing unit was set up by the Sandhu gang in Amritsar, a gang of five brothers from Havellian village in Tarn Taran, all booked in drug smuggling cases, formed the nucleus of a gang that spread from Pakistan to Kashmir to Punjab. The brothers, led by Kuldeep Singh Babu, used to live in Havellian, notorious as a haven for smugglers.

They earned so much money in the illicit trade that they had to buy land near Pathankot where they dug up five pits to bury cash. The STF recovered Rs1.29 crore from one pit while the other four were emptied after the 532-kg heroin haul by the Customs at Wagah border.

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ITEM - 02

Newly Emerging GANGS AND THEIR Crafty 

Methods of Smuggling in Narcotics

   

An operative of Sandhu gang who was arrested 

following STF raid in Sultanwind.

Simranjit Sandhu Gang

On January 31, seizure of 232 kg of narcotics and 200 kg of chemical in Amritsar was linked to this gang. Has footprint in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Gujarat, besides Punjab

NETWORK

Drugs transported from Afghanistan to Gwadar seaport in Pakistan via the deserted Pashni area. From here, boats believed to be enjoying Pakistan protection bring the drugs to boats run by Indian smugglers like Arshad Sota. They offload it at Unjha port in north Gujarat, from where it is transported by land to Punjab in trucks transporting cumin seeds

Key Members

Haji Jaan (based in Pakistan), Simranjit Singh Sandhu (kingpin and resident of Amritsar detained in Italy); Arshad Sota (in custody of Gujarat Police); Sota aides Aziz Bhagad and Rafiq Sandhu aides Manzoor Ahmed Mir and Nusrat Nazir from Kulwama, Kashmir

Amarinder Chhina Gang

In September last year, seizure of 115 gm of cocaine, 13 gm of ephedrine, 80 gm of hashish oil and 292 intoxicant capsules was linked to gang. Also recovered were mixing agents of 900 grams. Total worth: Rs 2 crore. Canadian-Punjabi gang is spread in Mexico, USA, Canada, Delhi, Goa and Punjab.

NETWORK

Cocaine from Mexico sent to India via USA and Canada in printers. At New Delhi, courier companies transported the consignment to Jalandhar

Key members

• Amarinder Chhina (from Ajnala in Amritsar and now settled in Canada). Punjab Police have sought his extradition. Status: Under process
• Akshinder Sodhi: Jalandhar trader who received drug consignment
• Yogesh Kumar Dhuma: Local peddler

532-kg Narco-Terror Nexus

Spread in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Punjab, Kashmir and New Delhi

NETWORK

Heroin found in June 2019 began its journey from Afghanistan. It reached Wagah trade centre via Pakistan. It was hidden in trucks laden with rock salt bags for supply in Kashmir and Punjab

Key Members

• Sahil Khan alias Musa — based in Pakistan, he runs the network along with key aides Farooq Lone and Amir Noor
• Tariq Ahmed Lone from Handwara in Kashmir is a rock salt trader and drug smuggler
• Guprinder Singh Babbar was an Amritsar trader who supplied Tariq the rock salt imported from Pakistan. He died under mysterious circumstances in Amritsar jail after his arrest
• Ranjit Singh alias Cheeta (absconding). Belonging to Havellian village in Tarn Taran, his brother Balwinder Singh, alias Billa, was arrested by STF. Three other brothers also involved in drug smuggling.

Status: Case being probed by NIA

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ITEM - 03

PK Jaiswar in Amritsar

   House that Turned out to be a 

              Drug Factory

Till the raid by Punjab Police’s Special Task Force on January 31, there was nothing odd about the plush house in Akash Vihar in Sultanwind village. Now, it may well be the most discussed address in Amritsar.

The seizure was mind-boggling — over 450 kg of narcotic material, including 194 kg of heroin, making it the second highest drug seizure following confiscation of 532 kg of heroin by the Customs at Wagah last year.

This was for the first time that an illicit drug manufacturing unit was unearthed in Punjab, and also the first time that an Afghan national was arrested for refining drugs.

Owned by Akali leader Anwar Masih, the house earlier housed a spray pump factory at the back. Masih claimed he never lived in the house and had rented it out to Sukhwinder Singh and Ankush Kapoor some time ago.

The STF landed at the house following the interrogation of Ankush, a cloth trader and “key operative” of the gang. Ankush was nabbed after his name figured during the interrogation of Sukhbir Singh alias Happy, who was caught with 6 kg of heroin just days prior to the raid.

The drugs were dumped in the house for refinement and mixing over a month ago. Afghan national Arman Basharmal was hired for the work and he reached India on January 19 on the pretext of treatment of a kidney ailment. Besides Basharmal, the STF nabbed Sukhwinder, Major Singh and a woman, Tamanna Gupta. While the role of Tamanna was being ascertained, Sukhwinder and Major were trainers at a gym on Mall Road. Ankush, Sukhwinder and Major had met at the gym.

According to sources, Ankush got involved in the drug trade after he came into contact with drug mafia don Simranjit Singh Sandhu, wanted by Gujarat ATS in a drug seizure case. They too had met at the gym.

Ironically, the house is located just 400 metres from the Sultanwind police chowki.

Masih told the media that he had sold the house and had already received surety amount. He claimed he had rented out the house to Ankush and Sukhwinder for a couple of months as they had approached him through a common contact. “However, there was no rent deed made as it would have legally bound them for 11 months.”

Punjab Singh, who lives with his family in a one-room tenement on rent at the back of the house, said they were not allowed to enter from the front. “We did not know about the drug unit until the police raid.”

A neighbour said they thought that a newly married couple had come to live there as a woman wearing red chura was seen along with a youth on the rooftop at times. “They used to move during late hours in their car, avoiding the main road outside the locality and using link roads instead.”

January 31 Seizure

• 194 kg of heroin

• 38 kg of dextromethorphan (used in cough syrup)

• 25.8 kg of caffeine powder

• 207 kg of chemical composition contained in six drums

Rs 7,575 crore 

• Yearly expenditure of drug addicts in Punjab
• Accounts for 2.5% of Punjab’s GDP

1.2% Addiction rate

• Is almost double the national figure of 0.7% Global addiction rate is 0.2%

Death Count

• Drug addiction caused 114 deaths in 2018
• The figure for 2019 was put at 47
  Source: Punjab Opioid Dependence Survey

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ITEM - 04

GS Paul in Amritsar

    532-kg Heroin Haul: Kingpin                             out of reach

Customs officials had recovered the consignment hidden in rock salt imported from Lahore

Challenges in Punjab's fight against drugs

• Use of drones/UAVs for drug smuggling
• Concealing in farm/construction equipment, throwing through pipes
• New routes and sources of drugs
• Use of social media and OTT apps for delivery
• Narco-terror and narco-gangster nexus
• Gangster-smuggler nexus
• Many involved in smuggling of liquor/traditional drugs have now shifted to smuggling of heroin and pharmaceutical drugs
• Proliferation of locally manufactured
  synthetic drugs
• Banned/prescription drugs now being used

SUCH moments come rarely in the career of Customs officials. June 29, 2019 is etched in the annals of the Amritsar office, when 532 kg of heroin and other narcotic substances — concealed in a rock salt consignment from Pakistan — was seized at the Integrated Check Post on the Attari-Wagah border.

The consignment from Lahore-based firm Global Vision Impex was meant for Amritsar importer Gurpinder Singh Babbar. He died under mysterious circumstances in police custody on July 21. His interrogation had led to the arrest of Handwara-based Tariq Ahmad Lone and others.

Six months after the National Investigation Agency took over the case on August 22, the architects of this narco-terror nexus on either side of the border remain out of reach.

The mastermind has been identified as Sahil Khan, also known as Musa Khan, who is said to enjoy immunity because of his political and bureaucratic links in Pakistan. His accomplices include Farooq Lone and Amir Noor.

On the Indian side, the kingpin is said to be Ranjit Singh alias Cheeta from Havellian village in Sarai Amanat Khan, Tarn Taran, who resided on Ram Tirath Road. His brother Balwinder Singh, alias Billa, was arrested by the Punjab Police Special Task Force.

Investigations by Amritsar police and Customs suggested that Gurpinder was in touch with Amir Noor and ordered the rock salt consignment from Global Impex. Noor got him connected with Lone in Kashmir. It was Lone’s second consignment of rock salt from the Lahore firm. A Customs’ official, preferring anonymity, said raids were conducted at all places where the first consignment was delivered, but nothing objectionable was found.

Cheeta, through local transporter Jasbir Singh, was supposed to pick up the narcotics that reached in the garb of rock salt from Gurpinder.

The NIA filed a chargesheet in the special designated court on December 27 against 11 accused, including four Pakistan nationals, and four firms: Kanishk Enterprises Pvt Ltd, Gupta Fast Forwarders Pvt Ltd, Global Vision Impex and Aimex General Trading Company.

NIA investigations established an international conspiracy in which nationals of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India belonging to Punjab, J&K and Delhi formed a gang to bring consignments of narcotics to India. They appeared to be carrying out a vast network of hawala and terror-funding activities.

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ITEM - 05

Mukesh Ranjan in New Delhi

Physical Re-Mapping done, Surveillance  up on Borders

BSF and SSB given more powers, NCORD activated

Mukesh Ranjan in New Delhi

Unlawful trade and smuggling of illicit drug and psychotropic substances from across the western border has for long been a major challenge. Pakistan’s army and intelligence agency ISI have been relentlessly targeting India with the help of terror organisations, who have indulged in drug trafficking to make easy money to support nefarious designs.

After a re-assessment of the method and quantum of terror funding, the government has taken several steps, said a senior official in the Union Ministry of Home Affairs. These include handing over probe in such cases to the National Investigation Agency, empowering BSF and SSB to conduct search, seizure and arrest suspects, and forming a Narco Co-ordination Centre (NCORD) under the Director General, Narcotics Control Bureau to provide a common platform for all drug law enforcement agencies and other stakeholders.

Intelligence inputs suggest that poppy (raw material) is majorly grown in Afghanistan, which is in turn sent to Pakistan for processing and then the finished stuff is pushed into India.

“As per a rough estimate, 1 kg of poppy is illegally sold to Pakistani processing units at Rs 10,000-15,000, which after processing 1 kg of end products (opium and heroin) cost in the range of Rs 5 lakh. But the moment it reaches the Indian market, the cost rises to Rs 1 crore, and once the consignments reach the West, the price goes up to Rs 5 crore,” the official said.

The MHA has directed the NCB to step up its activities. Rakesh Asthana, DG, Bureau of Civil Aviation Security, who was assigned additional charge of DG-NCB, recently chaired the first meeting of NCORD.

Minister of State for Home G Kishan Reddy, tasked to look after matters related to internal security, said the BSF, which guards the Pakistan and Bangladesh borders, has undertaken various measures to curtail the drug menace. These include a review of surveillance through vulnerability mapping of Border Out Posts and deployment of additional manpower.

Recently, Union Home Minister Amit Shah directed the BSF to conduct a physical re-mapping of borders to identify vulnerable spots for infiltration and arms-drugs smuggling. The exercise has concluded and the BSF has bolstered its patrolling and launched special operations, including anti-tunnelling exercise.

The SSB, deployed on the Nepal and Bhutan borders, has also hightened its patrolling to check illegal activities.

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ITEM - 06

Manas Dasgupta in Ahmedabad

Sea Corridor new Smuggling Route

Gujarat’s largest spice market used as land transit point

Manas Dasgupta in Ahmedabad

The Gujarat Police hope to reach the bottom of the Gujarat link in the Pakistan to Punjab drug trafficking with the arrest last week in Italy of Simranjit Singh Sandhu, considered to be one of the biggest drug mafiosi of the country, who the police of the two states believe was the main brain behind adopting novel methods in drug smuggling.

The Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) had been on the trail of Sandhu, a resident of Amritsar, ever since it detected the drug racket using Gujarat as a corridor in August 2018. The contraband from Pakistan was taken to Punjab and possibly also some other states in North India. Sandhu, it was reported, fled to Nepal and from there to Australia and finally landed in Italy, where at the behest of the Gujarat ATS he was detained by Interpol last week.

Taking a cue from the Pakistan-based Mumbai attackers and to avoid the strict vigil on the Punjab land border, the drug traffickers thought it prudent to use the vast, and in many parts virgin, sea coast in Gujarat to smuggle in the contraband and use Asia’s largest market in spices, Unjha located in north Gujarat, to camouflage the drug packages as harmless cumin seeds to transport the drugs by trucks to Punjab. 

The Sandhu gang, the Gujarat Police sources said, was the first known drug traffickers to use the sea route, landing the contraband on the Mandvi coast in Kutch district and transporting the consignment by road hidden under bags of spices.

Since when these novel methods of drugs trafficking were being used would perhaps be known when the Gujarat ATS gets to question Sandhu, but the chance arrest of two very small operators, residents of Jam Salaya near the Jamnagar coast, had led the police to the multi-billion dollar international drugs gang.

The police, on suspicion, had held one Abdul Aziz Bhagad with 5 kg of heroin in mid-August of 2018, and on questioning him detected the drug racket. Bhagad told the police that the drugs being carried by him were a small part of a 100-kg consignment sent from Pakistan and received at the Mandvi port by Shahid Sumra.

On the basis of the information provided by him, one Rafiq Sumra, a transporter of Mandvi and a relative of Shahid Sumra, was arrested while carrying a part of the consignment in his truck hidden under the cumin seeds loaded from Unjha.

Interrogation revealed that what he was carrying was the second consignment and the first consignment of 200 kg of heroin had already reached Punjab.

Bhagad had told the police that the Pakistani drug dealers had brought the consignment in dhows up to a point about 150 nautical miles from Mandvi, from where it was picked up by him and brought to the sea shore in small boats and delivered to Shahid Sumra.

On the basis of information revealed by Bhagad and Sumra, the Gujarat Police in September 2018 had also nabbed Nazir Ahmed Thakar from Srinagar. Thakar, a native of Anantnag district, and his accomplice Manzur Ahmed Mir had allegedly taken a large consignment from Rafiq Sumra at Unjha. Thakar is claimed to have revealed to the Gujarat Police that he and Mir took instructions from Sandhu.

The Gujarat ATS claimed to have identified the other truck drivers who had delivered the earlier drug consignments to Punjab and other northern states, all believed to be following the same modus operandi of hiding the contraband under the Unjha spices.

The state police have claimed that the sea route to Mandvi had been closed for drug trafficking ever since the detection of the Sandhu gang, but the recent seizure of two bags containing heroin pouches lying unclaimed on the Mandvi shore had again raised questions on the veracity of the police claims. The state police, however, have sought to dispense the recovery as part of the earlier smuggled consignment which was thrown into the sea when the police raided the boats and might have drifted to the shore now.

But the truth may come to light later.