Mumbai: The Anti-Narcotics Cell (ANC) of the Mumbai Police's Crime Branch conducted raids at several places in the city resulting in the arrests of 11 drug peddlers and seizure of 1.13kg of Mephedrone (MD) drugs worth ₹2.22 crore.
In the first operation by the Bandra unit of the ANC, two persons were arrested with Mephedrone from Maulana Shaukat Ali Road in Grant Road. An associate of the accused, a Mazgaon resident, was also arrested, followed by five more arrests from Nagpada and Agripada areas.
Major crackdown against drug peddlers
In total, 1.01 kg of MD were seized from the seven accused, valued at ₹2.02 crore. Police suspect that the key suspect who was managing the team of seven is in a foreign country.
In the second operation by the Worli unit of ANC, two persons were arrested from Santacruz and Cotton Green areas with the possession of 120gm of MD.
In the third operation, the Azad Maidan unit of ANC had previously arrested one person with possession of 3.11kg of MD worth ₹4.7 crore in 2022. Now, the investigation revealed that the arrested accused is linked to one Moin Khan from Ahmedabad, Gujarat state, a suspected member of the Arif Bhujwala and Chinku Pathan drug syndicate. Khan, who was hiding in Thane, Rajasthan and Gujarat, was arrested last week.
In the fourth operation, conducted by the Ghatkopar unit of ANC, MD valued ₹55 lakh was recovered from a notorious accused Batata Gang member named Saifulla Farooque Shaikh aka Saif Batata. Shaik was arrested in December 2023 by the Navi Mumbai ANC, who was then handed over to the ANC Ghatkopar for questioning.
ANC Mumbai claimed of seizing huge quantities of contraband worth over ₹53 crore with arrests of 229 key drug peddlers including Nigerian (14) and Tanzanian (2) nationals.
