Police crack down on drug dealers in AP

Police Commissioner A K Khan said his department found multi-state dealers with global connectivity selling banned drugs like Ecstasy and LSD in an operation codenamed ‘Marcus’. He also said police got hold of a large quantity of the drugs in a pre-Diwali raid.

Last Sunday the police had seized eight grams of contraband cocaine from two Nigerians drug peddlers for a Diwali party at a farm house on the city outskirts . In another incident, tirupati police seized 800 gm cocaine worth Rs 80 lakhs from two BTech students –Madhu Kumar from Tirupati and Pradeep Kumar from Anantapur- as they were travelling to the town on Ghat road. Khan said on Tuesday the police seized - 367 Ecstasy pills, LSD and 50 grams of amphetamines worth lakhs allegedly brought to the city.

They made three arrests and confiscated two laptops and mobile phones allegedly containing numbers and contact details of customers. 

Since last September, the peddlers have sold Rs 3 crore worth of drugs in Hyderabad, the police chief said.

The drugs were br­ought to Hyderabad by a Mangalore-based kingpin who sourced them from the Netherlands. Interrogation of the suspects revealed that the consignment was meant for a select 50 customers, including several known drug addicts in the city.

According to police a Mangalore resident Anthony alias John procured the banned narcotics from another source in the Netherlands establishing a channel through phone, email and other social networking sites. The drug consignment was delivered at Mangalore first and brought to Hyderabad through private Volvo travels bus, commissioner Khan said.

Following the arrest of a large number of Africans in the city on drug peddling charges, the Andhra Pradesh police have approached embassies of three countries to crackdown on the sources providing contraband substances, particularly cocaine, to Hyderabad.

Central Crime Station (CCS) Additional Commissioner of Police S Umapathy said that they had so far busted seven gangs, involving 12 foreign nationals during the last six months in procurement and distribution of drugs.