225 kg cannabis worth ₹55 lakh recovered in Greater Noida

The cannabis was concealed in small packets inside the truck to avoid detection. The truck was on its way to Delhi from Berhampur in Odisha.

A consignment of 225 kilogram of hashish (cannabis) worth ₹55 lakh was recovered from a truck at Pari Chowk in Greater Noida early Friday. Police arrested four men, including a graduate from Delhi University, in connection with the haul.

Following the recovery, the four men were arrested by police and taken to Kasna police station for questioning. (HT Photo)

The cannabis was concealed in small packets inside the truck to avoid detection. The truck was on its way to Delhi from Berhampur in Odisha. Apart from the driver, four other people were travelling in the truck. A police team that had already received inputs from their sources created a checkpoint at Pari Chowk and intercepted the truck around 4am.

Circle officer, Greater Noida-1, Amit Kishor Shrivastava, said, “We were sure about the tipoff and our team started checking the truck. The truck was not laden with any goods in a bid to avoid suspicion. The police team checked cabin area and found hashish (cannabis) concealed in the dashboard and ceiling area.”

Following the recovery, the four men were arrested by police and taken to Kasna police station for questioning. They were identified as Uday (27) of Bulandshahr, Sandeep (30) of Ghaziabad, Nitesh (31) and Raju (35), both residents of Gokulpuri area of Delhi.

During questioning, the police learnt that while Sandeep did his bachelors of arts (BA) from Delhi University, Uday and Nitesh studied up to class 10 and 12 respectively. The four men told police they had been smuggling cannabis from Odisha for the last three months and sold it to customers in Delhi and NCR region.

Shrivastava said that the four men were working for Gopal, a Delhi-based man in his mid-thirties who lives near Aggarwal Sweets in Uttam Nagar.

“Gopal would get the hashish concealed in the truck and tail it in his Hyundai Creta. On reaching NCR, Gopal would tell the driver to stop the truck and hand over the packets to the customers,” Shrivastava said.

Police said Sandeep and Nitesh had been working with Gopal for six months. The accused said for the last three months, their job involved travelling from Odisha to Delhi to smuggle consignments of the narcotic. They also told the police about four men at Berhampur in Odhisa from whom they huge quantities of cannabis.

They said Gopal sourced his consignments from Odisha thrice a month. They said they were paid handsomely for their job and all their expenses were borne by Gopal.

Shrivastava said, “The four men told us Gopal was following them in the Creta. We suspect he saw the truck being intercepted by the police and fled. The teams are working to develop the sequence of events and nab the people involved in this chain.