Telangana Police bust international drug racket; 8.5 kg of pseudoephedrine seized

An international narcotics peddling racket was busted and 8.5 kgs of pseudoephedrine worth Rs nine crores overseas was seized by the Telangana police.

The Special Operations Team (SOT) sleuths of Rachakonda Commissionerate, adjoining Hyderabad, have arrested two accused Mohd Kasim and Rasuldeen.

The duo from Tamil Nadu are involved in a surreptitious supply of pseudoephedrine, a narcotic control substance, parceled through international courier agencies from Hyderabad to Australia and New Zealand.

Kasim and Rasuldeen confessed that they shipped 15 consignments with about 70 kilos of pseudoephedrine to Australia and New Zealand in just 2022.

Fareed and Faisal of Pune and Raheem of Chennai are the other accused in the case.

According to Mahesh Bhagwat, Rachakonda Police Commissioner, drug smuggling gangs operating in Tamil Nadu have been using the Pune and Hyderabad air cargo route to smuggle pseudo-ephedrine and other banned substances to Australia, New Zealand.

The offenders book drug parcels at international courier services located in Pune, Hyderabad by concealing the pseudoephedrine in cloth, bangles boxes, baby wear gift packs, etc. They provide morphed addresses, and identity proofs like Aadhaar, and PAN cards of local people.

The 8.5 kilograms of narcotic substance was packed in 23 boxes with covers of Ramraj Cotton.

On Sunday evening, the SOT, Malkajgiri Zone along with local police raided a lodge in Nacharam and seized 8.5 kilograms of pseudoephedrine, cash Rs 4,02,500, and other incriminating material like passports, voter id cards, duplicate Aadhaar, PAN cards, laptop, 10 mobile phones, weighing, packing and vacuum sealing machines, courier receipts from their possession.

The police investigation established that the duo received pseudoephedrine from Raheem. They transport the substance to Australia and New Zealand through courier parcel agencies GVR International Courier Service, Hyderabad, and Indofine Express Service, Pune.

Similarly, four days back they received the drug from Raheem. The two came to Hyderabad in a bus on Sunday morning and took a room in a lodge to pack and transport the drug to the address provided by Raheem. But were caught by the
police.

On examination of the boxes seized, cops found plastic packets containing white powdery substance sandwiched between two layers of the cardboard box.