Three more held for selling drugs over dark net
Weeks after a hotel management graduate was arrested for selling psychotropic drugs worldwide through the dark net, three more persons were arrested from different parts of the country in connection with the case.
The narcotics control bureau (NCB) on Wednesday said among the arrested suspects was a director of a pharmaceutical company from Maharashtra’s Nagpur. A total of 91,000 tablets of different psychotropic drugs and over 135 kilograms of loose tablets have been seized, the bureau said in a press statement.
Hotel management graduate 21-year-old Dipu Singh was arrested from Lucknow on January 31. The three latest arrested persons were identified as Sachin Makade (33), Tejas Patel (28) and Barun Chauhan (33). They would allegedly arrange the shipment of contraband from Singapore to the USA and the UK as per orders from Dipu.
Makade is the director of a pharmaceutical company dealing in sale and supply of drugs related to treat sexual ailments. Chauhan is a qualified MBA and manages the with Makade since 2015. Patel associated himself with the two a year ago, the officials said.
NCB’s deputy director general Rajesh Nandan Srivastava said that Dipu Singh supplied psychotropic drugs to customers from various countries after receiving orders on dark net websites.
The dark net is that part of the internet that can be accessed with the help of certain software. Website and content on the dark net cannot be accessed through regular browser or indexed by popular search engine. Transactions made over the dark net, usually through cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, are extremely difficult to detect.
“Dipu Singh was listed as a vendor on two Darknet markets. His interrogation revealed his association with Patel and the other two persons,” said Srivastava.
On February 11, Patel was arrested along with Makade and Chauhan from Nagpur. Patel used to receive orders of psychotropic drugs for the USA and UK from Singh via WhatsApp, said KPS Malhotra, NCB’s zonal director.
“Patel passed on the order details to Makade and Chauhan who used their contacts in Singapore to get the drug delivered through his company,” said Malhotra.
NCB officials said that the psychotropic substance were being supplied in the garb of drugs related to treat sexual ailments, fitness supplements and other health products. Dipu Singh is learnt to have supplied 600 consignments of drugs using the Darknet network, they said.
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