Inbound overseas package with no consignee helps bust drug syndicate

The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) said it had arrested four college-goers who had been running a drug syndicate for the past two years. They procured MDMA pills through the dark web and peddled them to fellow students in Bengaluru, it said.

Acting on a specific tip, NCB officers confiscated a package dispatched to Bengaluru from The Netherlands on July 30. The package had been lying unattended at the foreign post office in Bengaluru as the receiver’s address was not mentioned on it, said Amit Ghawate, Zonal Director, NCB, Bengaluru. The package contained 750 tablets (142 gms) of MDMA pills, also known as Ecstasy.

A detailed investigation through technical analysis and manual intelligence led to the arrest of the four students on September 24. Using digital analysis, the NCB first arrested K Pramodh, the alleged consignee, and later arrested three others based on his information, Ghawate said.

The drug seizure comes two months after the police had intercepted a package of a staggering 750 MDMA pills that was also dispatched to Bengaluru.

The NCB said the racket was run by one Fahim and his friends Pramodh, A Hashir and SS Shetty. All of them are degree students at well-known private colleges in Bengaluru. While Fahim and Pramod are from Kerala, Hashir and Shetty hail from Karnataka.

According to the NCB, Fahim purchased drugs from the Netherlands through the Darknet and made payments using bitcoins. He would sell the Ecstasy pills to sub-peddlers as well as college students in Udupi and Chennai.