HYDERABAD: The Special Operations Team (SOT) of Cyberabad police arrested six inter-state peddlers transporting 800 kg of ganja worth 1.8 crore from Odisha to Maharashtra on Friday.
Police arrested Ashok Khule, Amol Athawale, Rahul Kumar Singh, Vilash Jagannath Phachore, Firoz Momin and Sudam Ghotekar of Maharashtra at Miyapur X roads and seized a DCM van with 800 kg of ganja and a car escorting the van. The acccused concealed the ganja packets under a load of ginger and escorted the DCM van in a car from Koraput area of Odisha.
During interrogation, the accused confessed to police that they went to Koraput on the instructions of Vikas Jadhav of Nashik in Maharashtra and procured ganja from Subhash Kumar of Koraput.
The six accused reached Koraput on January 19 in a car and a DCM van. After they reached Koraput, Vikas contacted Subhash and the latter took the DCM van away and returned with ganja load in it.
The gang members drove the van with some of them escorting it in the car to Hyderabad on Thursday night. Acting on specific information, SOT sleuths intercepted the car and arrested Ashok and Amol who were in it. Based on their information, police stopped the DCM van also at Miyapur and arrested four other gang members.
“The gang members purchased a kilo of ganja for 3,000 and were planning to sell the same for 20,000 a kilo,” Cyberabad commissioner M Stephen Ravindra said.
