E-Paper
Drug lord Akshay Chhabra’s aide lands in NCB net
A team of the Narcotic Control Bureau (NCB) in a joint operation with the counter-intelligence wing of the Punjab Police arrested the brother-in-law of drug lord Akshay Chabbra on Saturday from Ludhiana
A team of the Narcotic Control Bureau (NCB) in a joint operation with the counter-intelligence wing of the Punjab Police arrested the brother-in-law of drug lord Akshay Chabbra on Saturday from Ludhiana. The accused was identified as Sunny Verma, who used to handle cash transactions of the international drug syndicate of Chhabra.
During the operation, the NCB has recovered 79,000 Euros, suspected to be proceeds from drug trafficking activities and 2.5 kg gold bullion from the accused, said Amanjit Singh, zonal director, NCB.
An official of the NCB stated that Sunny Verma was also involved in money laundering at the behest of Chhabra. The drug lord has also started a firm in the name of Sunny. Starting with a loan of ₹55 lakh, the turnover of the firm had grown to ₹9 crore, which also raised the eyebrows of the NCB.
A total of 18 accused who were a part of the drug network have been arrested, including two Afghan nationals, who were hired by Chhabra to prepare synthetic drugs. The NCB has already frozen at least 60 bank accounts of Chhabra and his associates, besides 30 properties. According to the officials, the arrest of Sunny would further reveal more about the mode of money transactions of the drug syndicate.
The NCB busted this drug syndicate in November 2002. The NCB had found that Chhabra used to smuggle raw material from other countries. The Afghan citizens, who are chemists, used to make drugs out of it at two clandestine laboratories located in Ludhiana city.
The probe also found that Chhbara was not only smuggling raw heroin and morphine for himself, but was also smuggling the raw material, smuggling in the sauce and juice cans to Muzaffarnagar-based syndicate which the NCB had already busted.
The NCB had arrested Akshay’s close aid Sandeep Singh on November 15, 2022, with 20.326 kg of heroin from Ludhiana.
