The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on March 9 arrested Jaffer Sadiq, accused of being the kingpin in a ₹2,000-crore international drug trafficking racket, in Delhi. The network he set up allegedly trafficked approximately 3,500kg of pseudoephedrine to Australia, New Zealand, and Malaysia in the guise of food grade cargo.
Jaffer Sadiq alias Bezos is a Chennai resident and Tamil film producer, and also held the post of a deputy organiser of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s NRI wing for the Chennai District-West. After news of his alleged involvement in the drug racket came to light, he was expelled from the DMK on February 29. He had gone missing soon after the NCB and the Delhi Police Special Cell nabbed three persons in connection with the case. The NCB is also probing suspected political funding using drug money.
‘Mastermind’
NCB Deputy Director-General Gyaneshwar Singh told journalists that Mr. Sadiq has been identified as the “mastermind” of the operation, and had invested his proceeds from the illegal drug business in real estate, hospitality, and film production. Mr. Singh added that interrogation of the accused had reveaed that the ill-gotten money was used to fund Tamil movie Mangai, and to construct a hotel in Chennai.
Evidence of some political funding has emerged, and Mr. Sadiq’s links with certain prominent personalities, including in the Telugu film industry and in Bollywood, are also being investigated, the senior NCB official said. Stating that the agency was following the drug money trail, Mr. Singh said that all those found to have violated the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act would be booked.
Global network
Mr. Sadiq’s drug network is spread across the globe, from Delhi to Tamil Nadu and other places in India, as well as to New Zealand, Australia, and Malaysia. The NCB’s New Delhi operations branch began its investigation a few months ago, following information from New Zealand customs authorities and Australian police that large quantities of pseudoephedrine, concealed in desiccated coconut powder, was being sent to both countries. Further inputs from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration indicated that the source of the consignments was from Delhi.
Pseudoephedrine is used to make methamphetamine, a dangerous and highly addictive synthetic drug in high demand worldwide.
A joint investigation team, comprising officers of the NCB and Delhi Police, learnt that the operatives of the cartel in Delhi were trying to send another consignment to Australia. Two weeks ago, the investigation eventually led to the godown of a firm named Aventa in Basai Darapur, in western Delhi, where they were packing pseudoephedrine into a cover consignment of multigrain food mix.
The joint team recovered more than 50 kilograms of pseudoephedrine and arrested three operatives of the cartel. They have been identified as Mukesh, 34, Mujibur Rahman, 26, and Ashok Kumar, 33, all Mr. Sadiq’s accomplices from Villupuram in Tamil Nadu.
Admits to drug-trafficking operations
Mr. Singh said that the accused had gone into hiding following the arrest of three persons and the seizure of 50.07 kg of pseudoephedrine, from a godown owned by the Aventa company in Basai Darapur, west Delhi, on February 15. After the NCB located Mr. Sadiq and questioned him, Mr. Sadiq purportedly admitted during interrogation that he had headed the drug trafficking operations.
After the pseudoephedrine seizure, he had first gone to Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, and then headed to Rajasthan’s Jaipur via Mumbai and Pune in Maharashtra, and Ahmedabad in Gujarat. Based on the agency’s findings, he was placed under arrest. Later, Mr. Sadiq was remanded to judicial custody for seven day after being produced in the Patiala Court complex, Delhi.
Over the past three years, the cartel had smuggled out 45 consignments weighing about 3,500 kg of pseudoephedrine, concealed in dessicated coconut exports, and valued at nearly ₹2,000 crore in the international market. The “mastermind”, police said, received a cut of about ₹1 lakh per kg. Pseudoephedrine sells for about ₹1.50 crore per kg in Australia and New Zealand.
Mr. Singh said Mr. Sadiq’s name had also come up in 2019 during the Mumbai Customs’ investigation into a case in which another synthetic drug, ketamine, was being smuggled out to Malaysia.
