Interstate heroin syndicate busted in four-month op; five, including supplier, held

Police sniffed out the trail after arresting an accused, Mohammed Atif, 32, on a tip-off, with a kilogram of heroin from a railway station in north Delhi on January 18.

The Delhi Police crime branch, in a four-month operation, busted an interstate heroin syndicate — including two clandestine makeshift labs being run from housing apartments in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, and Hazaribagh, Jharkhand — recovered illicit substances worth ₹5 crore and arrested five persons, including a major supplier, police said.

Police arrested suppliers of the substance and raw materials from Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh and Hazaribagh in Jharkhand.

Police sniffed out the trail after arresting an accused, Mohammed Atif, 32, on a tip-off, with a kilogram of heroin from a railway station in north Delhi on January 18. Atif was booked under the NDPS Act and interrogated, leading to his supplier in Bareilly and his receiver in Anaj Mandi of Narela in the Capital.

Deputy commissioner of police (crime branch) Amit Goel identified Atif’s supplier as Mohammed Ashraf, 36. Police said Atif is a madrasa teacher who used to work as Ashraf’s driver, but later started working as a drug courier.

“Atif was then taken to Bareilly, where raids were conducted to find Ashraf. We found that he was hospitalised due to a leg injury. On February 5, Ashraf was arrested after he recovered. A raid was then conducted at his rented accommodation in Bareilly and 490 grams of heroin was recovered from inside a locker,” Goel said.

Ashraf is a key player of the Hazaribagh-Bareilly-Delhi syndicate and previously served a 10-year jail sentence in a drug case, police said.

From Ashraf, police ascertained he acted as an intermediary between his suppliers, Mohammed Rukhsar alias Raju, 26, and Arif Ali, 25, both of Bareilly, and receivers, Islam of Jahangirpuri and Arman of Bawana slum cluster in the Capital.

However, Islam and Arman (both of whom go by a single name) could not be traced.

On March 23, Arif was arrested from his rented house in Bareilly. Police recovered 202 grams of heroin and 201 grams of a mixing substance from his house. He revealed Rukhsar as his source, after which informers were deployed and technical assistance was obtained to trace him, police said.

Arif, a graduate, also has a prior, being booked in a case under the NDPS Act in Bareilly in 2019, police said.

Rukhsar was held on April 12 from his house in Jankipuram of Lucknow. When the team entered his house, they found that he was running a lab with an apparatus to prepare heroin. “The team recovered 200 grams of heroin, one kilogram of mixing substance, 500 grams of dye, 45 kilograms of soda and the apparatus used to prepare heroin from crude raw material,” Goel said.

Police said Rukhsar revealed his source for raw material as a man from Hazaribagh of Jharkhand, who kept changing his name. Police identified him as Mohammed Mukhtar Ansari, 45, after arresting him from his residence in Jharkhand on April 17.

“We have arrested the supplier and also, traced their source in this operation,” Goel said.

In a search of Ansari’s house, police recovered one kilogram of the raw substance, 359 grams of heroin, over a kilogram of chemicals, five kilograms of soda and a weighing machine.

An investigator, who did not wish to be named, said: “We found the raw material along with packets of finished product, which means he was also running a lab from his house and manufacturing heroin for selling.”

The investigator said the network was a major drug module supplying heroin in the Capital.

Over the next few weeks, investigators took Ansari to Jharkhand for further probe, but no arrest was made.

Rukhsar is also a drug trafficker and a key manufacturer and supplier, and Ansari primarily supplied the raw substance besides running a manufacturing unit in Jharkhand, police said.