The City police on Tuesday claimed to have busted a gang of ganja suppliers, including a kingpin from Andhra Pradesh. They were allegedly involved in selling the contraband to college students and youth in the city, based on online orders.
The Virugambakkam police, on information, raided a lodge on Ponniamman Koil Street on Saturday and rounded up six college students who were possessing huge quantities of ganja. Two among them were sons of police personnel in the city and Puducherry. Initially they were addicts. Attracted by high margins, they later became carriers. They procured the contraband from the main suppliers in Andhra Pradesh and sold it to online customers based on instructions from the main dealers. The six persons who were arrested were: T. Abdul Razak, A. Prithviraj, S. Ezhilarasan, K. Yuvaraj, S.Vijay and Ragul.
Based on their confession, the police arrested Vignesh alias Haribabu, 22, in Madurai who was another main suspect and a main dealer of ganja. He allegedly engaged youths for supplying and selling the contraband. His five associates were also nabbed. Further interrogation with him led to the arrest of Nuthakki Issac ,24, who was the kingpin operating from Andhra Pradesh.
Hari Kiran Prasad, Deputy Commissioner of Police, T.Nagar, said special teams were constituted to prevent ganja sales. “Due to the integrated investigation based on secret information from a source, we worked for the past few days and cracked a network of 13 persons involved in illegal activities,” he said.
The gang took a room in a lodge on a rental basis. Whenever demand arose in the city, they brought it from Andhra Pradesh and supplied. All their communications were done on WhatsApp calls, the police said and added that 18 kg ganja, nine mobile phones were seized from them.
