MUMBAI: After keeping a watch for the last three days of a remote location in Nashik's Shinde Gaon, the Saki Naka police finally on Thursday night raided a drugs manufacturing unit and seized 133kg MDMA (Ecstasy) worth Rs 267 crores.
The raid was carried out after police arrested one Jeeshan Shaikh (34) from his Nashik Road flat near Shinde Gaon who tipped off about the drugs manufacturing unit that is owned by a person who is brother to drug mafia Lalit Patil.
The Nashik's drug manufacturing unit was busted a month-and-a-half after the Saki Naka police made the first three--Javed Khan (27), Asif Shaikh (30), and Iqbal Ali (30)--arrest on August 8 based on a tip-off police constable Aditya Jadhav (35) received.
"The arrest of the three from Dharavi locality led to the seizure of 10 grams of MDMA from them. They further provided details of eight more and finally, the 12th accused was held from Nashik and led to the drug manufacturing unit," said DCP (Zone X) Datta Nalawade.
Among the eight accused arrested between August 8 and October 5, DCP Nalawade supervised the team--Saki Naka police senior inspector Gabaji Chimte, inspector Yogesh Shinde, assistant inspector Maitranand Khandare, sub-inspector Pankaj Pardeshi and staff--and further inquiry from the arrested led them to Arif Shaikh (42) in Hyderabad and 110 grams of MDMA was seized who supplied the drugs to the accused who operated from Dharavi.
Arif's arrest led to Naseer Shaikh (58) on August 20 who led to Rehan Ansari and led to the seizure of another 15 kg on August 23. "It was Ansari's arrest that helped us to track down the manufacturing unit in Nashik's remote location. To date a total of 151kg of MDMA worth Rs300 crore has been seized from the 12 arrested persons till date," said a police officer of the Saki Naka police station.
Meanwhile, a Saki Naka police officer said that they have learned from the arrested accused that the drug manufacturing unit is owned by the brother of the drug mafia Lalit Patil who had even contested the election before his arrest by the Pune police in 2020.
Lalit Patil, an accused in a drug trafficking case was first lodged in Pune’s Yerawada Central Jail in October 2020. He was admitted to Pune's Sassoon General Hospital for ‘treatment’ and allegedly ran a drug cartel from his hospital ward with the help of an aide and a canteen staffer. Patil managed to escape from the hospital three days ago after Pune's anti-narcotic cell raided the hospital and arrested his aide and seized 1.71 kg MDMA worth Rs 2.14 crore.
