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Cross-border drug smuggling racket busted, one held with 12-kg heroin
Punjab Police arrests member of a cross-border drug smuggling racket in Amritsar, seizes 12kg heroin; suspect has links with US-based smuggler.
Amritsar
The Punjab Police on Monday said it has busted a cross-border drug smuggling racket being operated by a US-based smuggler with the arrest of one of its members from Amritsar and seizure of 12 kilograms of heroin.
The arrested person, identified as Rahul of Naraingarh in Amritsar, allegedly has direct links with notorious drug smuggler Ranjeet alias Cheeta.
“Rahul is having direct links with drug smuggler Ranjeet Cheeta who was arrested in May 2020 in the 532-kg heroin haul case and his brother Sarwan Singh, who is operating from the US,” Punjab director general of police Gaurav Yadav said in a statement. Sarwan is carrying a reward of ₹2 lakh on his arrest.
Cheeta was the mastermind behind the smuggling of 532 packets of heroin, which were seized by the customs department at the Intergrated Check Post, Attari, in July 2019 and is being investigated by the NIA, the release said.
Apart from seizing heroin, police teams have also impounded his Honda Amaze car, in which he was travelling.
The DGP said following intel inputs that associates of Sarwan Singh have retrieved the heroin consignment dropped via drone and they are going to deliver it to someone, the State Special Operation Cell (SSOC), Amritsar, conducted a special checking in the city and arrested the accused after recovering 12 packets of heroin, weighing 1kg each.
The DGP said that as per preliminary investigations, Sarwan and was supplying heroin across the state after importing it from Pakistan.
Sharing more details, AIG, SSOC, Amritsar, Sukhminder Singh Mann said that further investigations are being conducted to unearth the network of drug suppliers, dealers and their buyers. Efforts are being made to ascertain the total amount of narcotics procured by the arrested accused to date, he added.
A case has been registered under Sections 21, 25 and 29 of the NDPS Act at the SSOC police station in Amritsar.
