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Cough syrup case: SIT to attach ₹30 crore assets of ‘kingpin’s’ father
Money made through crime was used to buy expensive properties, luxury vehicles, and make large deposits in banks, say police
VARANASI The special investigation team (SIT) of Sonbhadra police on Friday started proceedings to attach assets worth around ₹30 crore that were allegedly acquired by Bhola Prasad, the businessman father of absconding pharmaceutical dealer Shubham Jaiswal, through the smuggling of codeine-based cough syrups, police said in a communique.
The proceedings were taken up after a court issued a notice to this effect post the SIT submitting its report. In the note, Sonbhadra police said Prasad, who hails from Varanasi and owns Ranchi-based Shaili Traders, obtained his drug licence fraudulently by misleading the licensing authority in Jharkhand. Documents related to the warehouse and drug licence in the name of Shaili Traders were found to be fake, it added.
Based on this licence, the accused established several fake firms in Ranchi, Palamu, and Bokaro districts of Jharkhand, as well as in Sonbhadra, Varanasi, Chandauli, Bhadohi, Mirzapur, and Ballia districts of Uttar Pradesh, and showed legitimate supply of codeine-based cough syrup in the documents, added the communique.
Prasad, in collusion with drug traffickers, illegally smuggled bottles of codeine-based cough syrup to other locations. The money made through the crime was allegedly used to buy expensive properties, luxury vehicles, and make large deposits in banks. “The investigation so far revealed that the total value of the assets acquired illegally by the accused through the illegal trade of codeine-based cough syrup, was around ₹30 crore,” it added.
The police added legal proceedings for the attachment of the identified properties of the accused were underway. Further attachment proceedings would be taken up as per the rules if information about other assets acquired by the accused through this criminal activity came to light, the police added.
Prasad was arrested weeks ago from the Kolkata airport when he was trying to flee the country.
