Major cocaine cartel busted in Delhi, drugs of Rs 10 cr seized

New Delhi, Feb 23 (IANS) The Special cell of Delhi Police has busted an inter-continental syndicate of cocaine traffickers operating in a highly organized manner and recovered a massive 1,850 grams of contraband valued at approximately Rs 10 crore in the international market.

Two women -- Maurey Erna Gangadien (45), a resident of Suriname, South America and Namubiru Janat (35), a resident of Navi Mumbai, and a native of Uganda were arrested in this connection.

Furnishing details, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Counter Intelligence, Special Cell) Manishi Chandra said, the syndicate was being operated by its key players based in South America with nodes in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and Delhi.

"The contraband was being clandestinely smuggled into India by smartly packing in ladies' purses & cosmetic articles for the last several months," DCP Chandra said.

According to officials, the Counter Intelligence Unit of Special Cell has been developing intelligence on various cocaine-specific cartels operating in India. Amidst continuous intel-operation, a specific input was received on February 14 regarding movements of a foreign national lady into Delhi who was informed to have brought in significant quantities of cocaine from abroad.

Acting on the input, a team conducted a raid at a hotel in Karol Bagh area in Delhi, where the accused woman Maurey Erna Gangadien was found staying since February 11. "After complying with the stipulations under the NDPS Act, a search operation was carried out at her hotel room and over 1 kg of fine quality cocaine, neatly and professionally packed into the ladies purses', deodorant containers etc, was recovered," said the official.

The accused was accordingly arrested and sent to police custody where during the interrogation, the accused disclosed that she had transported the contraband on directions of her Paramaribo, Suriname based handlers who are connected with other cartels operating out of South American producer countries like Mexico etc and have major transshipment partners in several African nations.

It was also revealed that on February 14, prior to her arrest, the accused had delivered a part of the consignment brought in by her to another foreign national lady namely Lissa, a resident of Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra.

Accordingly, efforts were made to identify and track the movements of the suspect Lissa and to recover the contraband that she had reportedly received.

On February 21, the suspect Lisa whose real name was Namubiru Janat was apprehended from south Delhi while she was carrying a portion of the cocaine received from the first accused. She was also arrested and taken into police remand after which she led to further recoveries of cocaine.

"Accused Namubiru Janat holds a Ugandan passport and has been living in India at various places. Her movement records show that almost on a daily basis, she has been taking flights to various metropolitan cities like Bengluru, Ahmedabad etc," said the official.

The police have informed the respective embassies about their arrests and further investigation is under progress.